LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap. Va^ Copyright No.... 
Shelf ..__SS \ Z 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Joel Dorman Steele 




JOEI. DORMAN STEELF. 
From Crayon 



Joel Dorman Steele 

Teacher and Author 

BY 

MRS. GEORGE ARCHIBALD 



" So, when a good man dies, 
For years beyond his ken 
The light he leaves behind him lies / 

Upon the paths of men." ^ 

Longfellow 



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j-v\.A~. 



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NEW YORK 

A. S. BARNES AND COMPANY 

1900 



192G5 

l_ibr«ry of Congrress 

Two Copies Recei^^ed 
JUL 13 1900 

Copyright ««try 

SECOND COPY. 

Delivered to 

ORDER CKVISiJN, 



.\-1 



V^. 



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Copyright, 1900 
By a. S. Barnes and Company 



UNIVERSITY PRESS . JOHN WILSON 
AND SON . CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 



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PREFACE 

TO the systematic habits and affectionate fore- 
thought of Joel Dorman Steele and Esther 
Baker Steele, his wife, those who would know 
something of his life and teachings are indebted 
for accuracy of dates and illustration of character- 
istics made possible in this biography, edited 
thirteen years after his death. It was Dr. Steele's 
custom to date and preserve in excellent order 
for reference all press notices of the public events 
with which he was connected ; to record every 
personal change of location, his frequent journey- 
ings, and the progress of his different literary 
labors ; and to file with care all important letters 
belonging to the consideration and business de- 
tails of his plans. Meantime, Mrs. Steele, for 
reasons of sentiment, kept everything in the 
nature of correspondence which came to her 
from her husband during their twenty-seven years 
of married life. 

As soon as Dr. Steele by the originality of his 
school system and the fame of his text books be- 
came extensively known, he found himself, like 

iii 



Preface 

all men of note, the subject of frequent newspaper 
sketches, and he was often called upon by writers 
who requested facts and incidents pertaining to 
his history. Of personal publicity, however, he 
was wary, knowing that simple statements often 
suffered the common fate of facts — perversion 
from the original truth. It thus occurred that as 
time passed and it became evident that his hold 
on life was increasingly precarious, his wife, among 
other things which she sadly pondered in her 
heart, thought of the growing call for fuller 
particulars in reference to his life, and of the in- 
sufficiency of anything ever written. And she 
sometimes urged him to set down in order enough 
of personal experience for a story that would be 
satisfactory to his friends. 

On the afternoon of May 14, 1886, his fif- 
tieth and last birthday, Dr. and Mrs. Steele went 
for their usual daily drive over the beautiful hills 
which overlook the Chemung Valley. Chatting 
about the anniversary, its home observance, the 
telegrams, and unexpected gifts from various 
friends outside the family, he remarked that he 
had been preparing a gift to his wife for that day, 
but had not been well enough to complete it. 
She laughingly responded that though it was not 
usual to make presents on one's own birthday, she 
was curious to know what he had intended for her. 
He then announced that since his return from 
Florida, three weeks before, he had been making 



Preface 

a sketch for the autobiography she had so much 
desired, but that the need for haste had hampered 
and the excessive recurrence of the personal pro- 
noun had repelled him, and he feared he should 
have neither time nor strength to finish it or shape 
it as he wished. Mrs. Steele, having always a 
half-conscious foreboding of the coming shadow, 
and feeling the value of even the merest outline, 
expressed her delight at his intention, and begged 
him to complete the sketch, offering to transpose 
it afterward into a proper literary form and thus 
relieve him from further responsibility. It was, 
therefore, so agreed upon between them. i 

Eleven days later, and before Mrs. Steele had 
seen the still unfinished sketch, the sudden sum- 
mons came. The shock of bereavement long 
unfitted her for the sacred duty. Meanwhile a 
host of business cares and various book revisions 
overtaxed her time and strength. And always, 
when in any pause of work or access of energy 
she turned toward the pathetic task, she found 
herself by reason of her overwhelming sorrow 
peculiarly unnerved and incapacitated. 

Finally, after many attempts to settle to the 
undertaking, and constant repetition of the dis- 
comfiture of grief, she put her mass of material 
into the hands of another with the expectation 
of issuing the memorial book on the tenth anni- 
versary of her husband's death. Three years 
afterward, the volume being still unfinished, the 



Preface 

material was recalled with a renewed resolve to 
undertake a personal preparation. And still af- 
fliction, as before, touched by the hand of retro- 
spect, wakened to its first intensity and prevented 
her. 

The year 1899 saw the conveying of Mrs. 
Steele's magnificent gift to the city of Elmira, 
N. Y., " The Steele Memorial Library," erected by 
her in remembrance of her husband. Determin- 
ing to make the book a part of this memorial 
offering, she now intrusted it to one who, while 
realizing that such an achievement is worthy a 
service of highest equipment, has brought in its 
stead only sincerity, appreciation, and affectionate 
remembrance. 

By virtue of this, however, it is offered to those 
for whom it is designed with a good degree of 
confidence, for in it will be found an honest story, 
being mostly a revelation of the man it concerns 
in his own words, through letters and otherwise. 
Such an ingenuous disclosure of his everyday 
habit of mind in its various moods, times, and 
circumstances, cannot but be welcome to his many 
friends and to the students of his books in every 
state of the Union. 



VI 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



Page 

Preface v 

Introduction : Autobiographical xi 

Twenty Years' Work — List of Books . . xxxiii 

Chapter 

I. The Good Fortune of Birth .... i 

II. The Growing Teacher 8 

III. The Marriage of True Minds . . .' 15 

IV. "War's Red Techstone" 22 

V. At Newark 31 

VI. Elmira Free Academy 41 

VII. School Government 50 

VIII. The Teacher's Aim 68 

IX. The Making of Books 86 

X. The Histories 94 

XI. The Critics 105 

XII. The Traveller 118 

XIII. The Home-Keeping Heart 133 

XIV. As Others saw Him 142 

XV. The Talent for Industry 151 

XVI. Life's Immortal Beauty 164 

XVII. From his Desk i79 

XVI 1 1. History of Science Teaching .... 190 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATION'S 



Joel Dorman Steele Frontispiece 

From Crayon. _ „ 

Facing Page 

Joel Dorman Steele 46 1/ 

From Marble Bust by Conkey. 

Working Library Corner, Mr. Steele's Home 

AT Elmira 140 ^^ 

Steele Memorial Library, Elmira 166 1/ 

Steele Memorial Library, Reading Room . . 170 1/ 
Steele Memorial Library, Alcoves and 

Gallery 176'' 



INTRODUCTION 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 

THE sketch which follows was jotted down at inter- 
vals during the last month of Dr. Steele's life, 
and is here given just as his pen left it on the day of his 
death. It was found inclosed in a cover marked, 
*' Written to please my personal friends." To them it is 
especially presented : 

I was born at Lima, N. Y., on May 14, 1836. My 
father, Rev. Allen Steele, was then preaching in Rochester, 
but my mother was visiting my uncle, a physician in Lima. 

By a singular coincidence, I thus came into the world at 
the foot of the hill on which I afterward spent so many 
happy days in laying the basis of my education, and from 
which I took my flight as a full-fledged A.B. Lima has 
therefore a double interest to me. 

My early life partook of the variety incident to one whose 
father was a Methodist itinerant. I have been told that in 
the first twelve years, or thereabout, of my life, we lived in 
fourteen houses. At one time, in Lockport, owing to the 
scarcity of dwellings available, we shared the county jail 
with the sheriff. Lockport is memorable to me as the place 
where I wore my first pair of boots, and this is the first 
count in my life of which I have any recollection. It must 
have been about 1839 or 1840. The satisfaction I felt in 

xi 



Introduction 

tramping down the aisle of tlic church in my new foot-gear 
is yet a residuum in my brain-cells. 

In 1845, my father moved to Albany. Here my education 
was begun in earnest. I became a pupil of Charles Anthon, 
in the Boys' Classical Institute. In this school, famous in 
those days for its strictness and thoroughness, I laid the 
foundation of my Latin most carefully and accurately, 
though every stone was watered with my tears. Two years 
later we went to Troy, where in the Boys' Academy I 
pursued my studies further, beginning also Greek and 
French. My outside reading, chiefly of travels, became 
quite extended, and for the first, I felt the real zest of a 
student's love of work. 

At this time I experienced my first deep craving after a 
spiritual life, and, boy as I was, I gave my heart to God. 
It was a solemn consecration that has never entirely lost its 
force or meaning in shaping my character. It was not a 
common thing in those days to receive a child of twelve 
years into the church. I saw that my father hesitated 
somewhat to take this unusual step. He left action with 
me, saying I must do what I judged best. I desired 
to join on probation, and on Thursday evening, after the 
prayer meeting, I presented myself at the altar. My father 
explained my views, traversed his own early experience, 
asserted the fact and possibility of child conversion, ex- 
plained his convictions upon this subject in a most power- 
ful and long remembered exhortation, and then extended to 
me the fellowship of the church. I was cordially welcomed 
by the people, yet I was the only child present at the meet- 
ings, and I felt that my admission had required an apology, 
and was largely due to my father's character and promi- 
nence. I saw also that mine was considered an anomalous 
case of grace ; that I was like one " born out of due 
season; " and that I was watched and coddled accordingly. 

My father, feeling that my constitution needed the strength 
to be gained only by outdoor work, now purchased a farm 
near Batavia, Genesee County, N. Y. Here for a time I 
spent my summers in steady labor, while the winters were 

xii 



Introduction 

devoted to study. I acquired a good knowledge of farm 
work, gained some physical vigor, and a little mental 
development. I was fond of gunning, and divided my 
leisure quite impartially between reading and hunting. I 
was somewhat famed as a marksman, and I remember that 
a gunsmith exhibited in his window a mass of some bullets 
that I had welded together back of the bull's-eye in the 
body of a tree where the shots lodged. 

In November 1851, I experienced the first great sorrow of 
my life in the death of my mother. Yet its keenness was 
much lessened by the fact that at the time I was so ill with 
typhoid fever that the knowledge of my loss was kept from 
me until I surmised it from the saddened and pitying looks 
of those around me. Still my benumbed feelings were so 
torn with anguisli that for days my life was in great danger. 
In fact, on November 9th, my father was called out of the 
pulpit, in the midst of his sermon, to come to my bedside 
to see me die. But, through a gracious Providence, the 
powerful remedies administered by a daring physician 
proved successful and I was restored to health once more. 

I taught my first school, a common country district school, 
in the summer of 1853. My wages were twenty shillings 
per week, and I boarded around in the good old fashion. 
I taught according to my knowledge, and honestly tried to 
do my duty by my pupils and patrons. But I was only 
seventeen years old, and never having come myself under 
the training of a great and true teacher, I had no conception 
of the dignity of my calling, or the weight of its responsi- 
bility. No tired pupil or bedraggled ditch-digger ever 
watched more eagerly for the clock to mark the close of his 
day's labor than I did in the master's seat of that old red 
school-house. 

When harvest time came, I gladly closed the door behind 
me and went home to swing the cradle and bind the wheat 
in my father's fields. The trustees of the school, resenting 
my absence, hired a new teacher, and I made no complaint. 
In fact, I was glad to be thus easily saved from the neces- 
sity of returning to the detested spot and work, 
xiii 



Introduction 

(In a lecture entitled, " Hints to Young Teachers," I have 
given a rdsumd of my methods of work at this time. The 
statements there made are all real, save that I took a 
" poet's license " and combined in the description an account 
of my second school, taught three years later, and during 
the winter. I was then more successful, and more intelligent, 
but still equally ignorant of educational methods and the 
true end of teaching.) 

In the spring of 1854, my father sold his farm, and I 
joined him in New York where he was pastor of the Red- 
ding Methodist Episcopal Church. After a thorough ex- 
amination, I was appointed assistant book-keeper in the 
Broadway Bank. I remained there only a short time. 
The work of transcribing and adding interminable columns 
of figures held out to me little promise of ever reaching the 
kind of life 1 had already begun to hope for, and I gladly 
resigned my place to accept an offer of a clerkship in the 
" Advocate " office at the Methodist Book Concern, then 
No. 200 Mulberry Street. My labor brought me in contact 
with intelligent, progressive young men, and I found it very 
agreeable. After a while, I was trusted to write brief 
reviews of current books, receiving a copy of the book for 
my pay. Already, in my leisure hours, 1 had begun to 
prepare articles for the press, and had experienced the 
unspeakable pleasure a young author feels, when he first 
sees his thoughts exhibited in fair type on clean white 
paper. 

One evening in September 1854, Rev. Dr. Phillips, of the 
book firm of Carlton and Phillips, took my arm as I left the 
office, and walked up Broadway with me. I soon saw that 
he had an object in view. Suddenly he exclaimed, " Dorman, 
you must go to college ! " I hesitated and argued in 
opposition, but he brushed away every objection, and in- 
sisted that I should lay the project before my father im- 
mediately. 1 finally yielded. On talking with my father 
that night, 1 found him of a similar view, and I resolved to 
leave my pleasant work and dawning prospects in the city, 
and to take up a student's life in earnest, 
xiv 



Introduction 

The next week saw my name enrolled as that of a budding 
freshman at Genesee College. My four-years course of 
study at Lima was uneventful, though pregnant with results. 
I was ambitious and yet found myself brought into com- 
petition with young men of greater natural ability and far 
better preparation for work. I found, however, that I had 
one gift — that of perseverance. I used often to say to my 
rivals, " You can learn more easily than / can, but I can 
study more hours than you can." It was a great solace to 
me to recall how, in the fable, the tortoise won the race 
with the hare. Gradually my earnestness and enthusiasm 
told, and I discovered new and unsuspected elements of 
my mind coming to the front, and encouraging me by the 
presence of fresh sources of strength. I did much literary 
work outside of class duty. I took an active part in the 
societies, and soon became known as a leading spirit in the 
Lyceum — a debating organization in the Genesee Wesleyan 
Seminary, in which building I boarded. Its members 
heaped upon me all the honors in their gift; my room 
became the head-quarters for its committee meetings ; and I 
bore my full share of the burdens of its management. 
This labor I now consider as among the most important 
of my school life, for I there learned to be alert, to defend 
my views, and to hold my own among my fellows. 

My father being unable to pay all my college bills, after 
the second year I spent my vacations in farm work. During 
one summer vacation I earned fifty dollars in the harvest 
field. In my Junior year I taught a district school for 
three months. Finally, I was forced to borrow money from 
a relative, and to give my note to the boarding hall for my 
last year's board. It was a difficult struggle, and I was 
driven to economize, where abundance meant opportunity 
and culture ; yet want had its advantages, also, for it meant 
freedom from many temptations, and the development of 
energies that otherwise might have remained dormant. 

After graduation from College, I went to my father's farm 
at West Barre, Orleans County, N. Y., and, doffing the 
student, became the farmer. I had no vocation in life. 

XV 



Introduction 

No special profession enticed me to its fold. I discovered 
in myself no peculiar aptitude for any particular kind of 
work. I said to myself only this : — "God brought me into 
this world and God has something for me to do. In His 
own good time, He will open the gate into My field of labor 
and, meantime, I will lift no latch. I can earn my bread 
on the farm, and — wait ! " 

One day there came to me from an entire stranger an 
invitation to teach in a school of which I had never before 
heard, situated in a section of the state entirely unfamiliar 
to me. It was from Principal J. R. French, LL.D., now of 
Syracuse University, offering me a place in the Mexico 
Academy, Mexico, Oswego Co., N. Y. I accepted. It 
was my first call, and I believed it to be my summons to 
my life's work. Every doubt and scruple as to what I was 
to do vanished in an instant. When I learned afterward 
that I was recommended to the place by Rev. Dr. Bragdon, 
of Genesee College, a professor whom I scarcely knew, my 
faith in my mission was still further strengthened. Never 
did a young man go forth with a stronger determination to 
bend every energy to win success. My salary was small. 
"You fix my wages this year," I said to the trustees, " but 
I will fix it next year." To their look of inquiry, I added, 
" I intend to make myself so useful to you that you will pay 
me any price to keep me." 

Several of the studies I was required to teach were un- 
familiar to me. Unwilling to let my pupils know this fact, 
I did not commence my preparation until after they had 
retired at night. Sometimes the five o'clock morning bell 
would startle me at my desk with the necessity for taking a 
little sleep before I began my day's work. I kept several 
lessons in advance of my classes, and hence was ready to 
answer every question, and I do not think any one of the pupils 
suspected at what a little distance ahead of them their 
teacher was really travelling. 

The amount of work I accomplished during the first year 
was enormous. Thus, I read the six books of the ^neid 
through carefully seven times, using every collateral help of 

xvi 



Introduction 

notes, grammars, classical dictionaries, etc. After a time I 
adopted in Latin the custom of prelection. At the close of 
each recitation, I read to the class the translation of tlie 
next day's lesson, couched in the best English I could use. 
The pupils were required to translate so fluently that a 
listener would suppose them to be reading an English book. 
This was always given as the test of good work. It was in 
order for me to call for any passage previously passed over, 
and the pupil was expected to be prepared every day on 
anything he had read during the term. Literal translations 
and application of rules to idioms were given separately. 
I carried out this mode of work very carefully in my sub- 
sequent teaching. The result was a remarkable form of 
using English, which, after all, I conceive to be the best 
effect of studying Latin in school. 

Soon after I began my teaching, the young men who 
occupied the rooms on the upper floor of the Academy, 
"tried on the new teacher," as the current saying went. One 
evening I was aiding some pupils in my room, when a 
terrible crash resounded through the building ; and on going 
to the hall I found on the floor the remains of a stove which 
had just been dashed down the stairs past my door. Know- 
ing, of course, that before I could ascend to the upper hall, 
the perpetrators of the act would be in their rooms and 
probably in bed, I returned to my table and completed the 
lesson in hand. Soon afterward, I went upstairs, and found, 
as I expected, the hall filled with students, busily com- 
menting on the disturbance. As they gathered about me, I 
quietly and carefully gathered the reins of conversation 
into my hands. Finally, a circle was formed and I narrated 
stories of student tricks and escapades. The boys joined in 
with anecdotes and observations, and we had a pleasant 
chat. Meanwhile, I moved about and critically scanned 
every person present. Suddenly I remarked, " But the 
boys who threw the stove downstairs forgot to wash their 
hands ! " Unconsciously the guilty ones dropped their 
eyes to see if their blackened fingers had betrayed them. 
It was enough, and amid a jovial laugh on the part of the 
b xvii 



Introduction 

young fellows, who now comprehended my scheme, I returned 
to my room. At breakfast the next morning I told the 
story to the principal of the school, and before chapel the 
offenders were called before him, compelled to confess, and 
made to sign an acknowledgment of penitence and promise 
of amendment. 

In the summer of 1859, ^t the close of the first year. 
Principal French, having decided to practise law thereafter, 
resigned his place, and I was elected to succeed him. It 
was a better outcome of my labors than I had dared to 
expect, though it was with great hesitancy that I ventured 
to follow in the tracks of so popular and successful a teacher. 
Fortunately, I had ere this discovered an efficient helpmeet, 
and before I assumed my new responsibilities as principal, I 
married Miss Esther Baker, the teacher of music in the 
Academy. Every year that has passed since then, has but 
served to prove the wisdom of that choice. Nearly thirty 
years have come and gone, and still our feet keep time to 
the music our early love then set vibrating. My wife at 
once came into full accord with all my plans, aided me with 
her advice and sympathy, cheered me with her hopefulness, 
and merged her life in mine. Somehow, in looking back 
over the labors of the past, I hardly know where her work 
began and mine ended, so perfectly have they blended. 

I occupied the principalship of Mexico Academy until 
the autumn of 1861. The breaking out of the Civil War 
had then filled my mind with new thoughts, and inspired a 
sense of a different duty. The patriotic fervor of the school 
ran high. The pupils raised a liberty pole, and unfurled the 
flag of the Union amid loyal speeches and songs. Finally, 
a regiment of volunteers being raised in Oswego County, it 
was found that one company was lacking. So many assured 
me that I was the only man who could give a fresh impetus 
to enlistments, that at last I resigned my place and offered 
my services to my country. I raised the company, was 
chosen captain and sent to the front. When the Eighty-first 
New York State volunteers marched up Pennsylvania 
Avenue at Washington, I led Company K. It numbered 
xviii 



Introduction 

one hundred and one as true-hearted and devoted men as 
during all that long and bloody war were hurried to the 
defence of the flag and the principles it symbolizes. 

My experience in camp and field is described in a series 
of letters I wrote at the time for my home paper. I had no 
love for a military life, and I found the duties of a soldier 
quite incompatible with those of a student. Yet I had no 
tliought but of remaining till the last traitor was subdued, 
when an unlooked-for fatality befell me. 

On the field of Seven Pines I was badly wounded. Being, 
however, the only commissioned officer present with the 
company, I remained in command for a week thereafter — 
a week of constant exposure and danger. We had lost all 
our camp equipage, our coats, blankets, cooking utensils, 
etc., and were stationed in the midst of swamps. It rained 
almost constantly, and we had no protection whatever. At 
night we cut down brush with our knives, placed it evenly 
in heaps, and thus made rude beds. Several men would 
lie together for the sake of warmth, but their weight would 
sink the pile, and we would frequently waken to find our- 
selves in a puddle of water. 

Being seized with rheumatism caused by such exposure, 
I was finally taken to the hospital at City Point. Thence I 
was sent on north, from place to place, until at Philadelphia 
I was furloughed to go home, as the hospitals en route 
were all full to overflowing. A kind chaplain, Rev. J. B. 
Van Petten of Fairfield, N. Y., conducted me as far as 
New York City. How I ever got from there to Penn Yan, 
I cannot remember or imagine. Weakened by disease and 
half crazed with pain, my clothing soiled by dirt and torn by 
bullets, I must have presented a strange appearance. I 
dimly recall how people stared at me as I passed along, and 
offered any assistance possible. I must have wandered in 
my delirium from the direct route. Long afterward, a friend 
told me that he met me on the Erie cars at Corning, yet I 
came into Penn Yan from Elmira and so, after meeting my 
friend, I must have gone east again to Elmira, and thence by 
the Northern Central Railway to Penn Yan. The entire 
xix 



Introduction 

journey has been to me a sealed book, save as memory has 
opened here and there a single unconnected leaf. 

In Penn Yan my wife was staying at the residence of my 
uncle — Hon. Wm. S. Briggs. There at last I found 
the care and surgical skill I so much needed. They came, 
however, almost too late. Southern fever superseded, and 
my life was long in danger. Just as I was recovering, an 
order from Washington was issued directing all furloughed 
convalescent officers to repair to a convalescent camp at 
Baltimore under pain of being held as deserters. There 
was, in the opinion of my friends, no alternative for me in 
my feeble condition, except to resign. I reluctantly com- 
plied with the necessity and was duly and honorably mus- 
tered out of the service. Thus abruptly ended this stirring 
episode in my life. 

In the autumn of 1862 I accepted the principalship of the 
Newark Union Free School, and resumed my pedagogic work. 

I took a deep interest in the prosecution of the war, and 
made frequent speeches, wrote many articles, and, in gen- 
eral, aided in guiding public sentiment, in upholding the 
form of the goverment, and in the enlistment of troops. I 
had several very flattering offers to re-enter the army, but 
my experience had taught me that my physical endurance 
was not sufficient to bear the strain of campaign life. It 
was a year after my resignation before I fully recovered my 
strength. For months of this time, owing to indigestion, I 
was forced to live exclusively on mutton broth and rice. 
When at last I regained my vigor, my sense of duty pointed 
to other fields of labor. 

At Newark I spent four pleasant and profitable years. 
I had now settled down unreservedly to the work of a 
schoolmaster, and I was bent on making the most of it, and 
of myself in it. Educational methods gradually unfolded 
themselves in my experience. I gained some power of 
instruction. I slowly learned how to govern, and to read 
and lead minds. I became more and more impressed that I 
was called to the work of a teacher, and that I must and 
would be successful. 



Introduction 

In the winter of 1863-64, an unlooked-for outcome of my 
work presented itself. At the close of chapel exercises, one 
morning, I noticed that many of the pupils were in tears. A 
strong influence pervaded the room. A singular impression 
was made on my own mind, and I seemed driven forward by 
unseen and unknown influences. I restrained myself, how- 
ever, and merely announced that after school at night, I 
should be happy to meet in the library such pupils as desired 
to converse with me. At the hour named I entered the room 
and found it, to my surprise, crowded with the oldest and 
best students and all the teachers of the institution. I made 
a few quiet, earnest remarks upon this singular episode of 
our school life, and then prayed for Divine guidance to point 
out what we should do next. It was a new experience for 
me and I determined to unfurl my sail, and drift with the 
wind and tide — celestial forces all, as I believed. 

Several of the teachers and pupils spoke and prayed, each 
one feeling the solemn nature of the occasion, and expressing 
an anxiety to do his or her duty in this unexpected emergency. 
The next Sunday evening, at the request of many young 
people, I called a meeting in the Methodist Church. The 
spacious chapel was crowded and when an opportunity was 
given nearly every one present rose for prayers. There was 
no visible excitement, no obtrusive emotion. Only the young 
people took part. No minister attended, or aided, or sug- 
gested, in the work. Yet there was a deep undercurrent of 
feeling that swept through the entire community. Meeting 
after meeting followed. There were no awakening sermons 
or speeches, and at our gatherings we had only plain talks, 
earnest prayers, and devotional songs. Yet, at one time, 
every member of the Academic department expressed a hope 
of saving grace. Union meetings of the churches followed in 
the wake of this wonderful revival, and were continued until 
spring. The young people, however, kept up their own relig- 
ious assembly as long as I remained in Newark, and I do not 
believe any of us ever forgot the deep sense we experienced 
of the Divine presence and blessing. The memory of our last 
meeting will be to me a benediction as long as I live. 
XX i 



Introduction 

Ever since I began to write compositions in school, I had 
cherished a desire to form a correct literary style. While in 
college I took Emerson as a model for terseness and vigor, 
and Whipple for eloquence and brilliancy. I studied these 
authors carefully and committed many of their best passages. 
I tried to express their ideas in my own language, and then 
diligently compared my sentences with theirs. Vacations, 
Saturdays, and odd hours generally were devoted to this 
fascinating employment. I spared no opportunity to exercise 
the gift which I hoped I possessed. For over twenty years, 
from 1852 to 1874, I never declined a chance to write a 
composition, essay, oration, newspaper article, or lecture 
that presented itself. Not that I was anxious to appear in 
public, but I felt that writing alone would give me form of 
expression, as study gave me fertility of thought. During 
that entire time, I never charged a cent of remuneration, 
and, I think, nothing was ever offered me, except in a few 
cases for my travelling expenses. All I sought I gained, a 
chance to develop a literary style. 

From the first I had done my best teaching in the Sciences, 
especially in Physics, Chemistry, and Geology, the branches 
I was required to take charge of in schools. Not satisfied 
with a mere routine of recitations, I at once turned to ex- 
perimentation and sought to bring my pupils face to face 
with Nature. We had neither apparatus nor money, and we 
were forced to resort to every method of securing means to 
prosecute our illustrations and investigations, and to test 
our ideas scientifically. We made many pieces ourselves; 
one, I remember, was a galvanic battery of eighty pairs of 
cups. We manufactured such of our chemicals as we could. 
I gave a series of scientific lectures, and devoted the pro- 
ceeds to the purchase of instruments. Finally it came about 
that every alternate Wednesday evening of the winter was as- 
signed by common village consent to our exclusive use at the 
Academy, and thither flocked the young people — and occa- 
sionally, also, ye elder folk — to hear some scientific subject 
explained and to see what new piece of apparatus we had 
made or purchased. The enthusiasm aroused in the classes 
xxii 



Introduction 

was unbounded. The money raised was duplicated by the 
Regents of the University, and when I left the school, its 
apparatus was estimated to be worth about two thousand 
dollars. 

One afternoon in March 1866, I was lying on a lounge in 
my Hbrary, being just convalescent after a severe illness. 
Suddenly there came a knock at the door, and happening to 
be alone in the house at the moment, I could only call out 
to the visitors to enter sans ce're'moftie. To my surprise I 
found it a committee from the Board of Education of 
Elmira, N. Y., sent out to find a principal for their Academy. 
The delegation, consisting of Superintendent Orrin Robin- 
son and Attorney Newton P. Fassett, had visited several 
schools, and in my absence and without my knowledge, 
had just inspected my own. After a brief conversation they 
offered me the position in their Academy, and I promised 
to take the subject into consideration. No step in my Hfe 
ever received greater deliberation. The prospect of wider 
usefulness, the benefit to my health of a change of climate, 
and perhaps, also, the offer of a higher salary, finally decided 
me, and as the Newark Board of Trustees kindly agreed to 
release me, I accepted the new position for the spring term. 

At Elmira, I found the Academy demoralized beyond all 
my anticipations. During a preliminary visit I had watched 
the principal calling the school to order, after recess, by 
walking through the study hall and tinkhng a little bell in the 
midst of each group of disorderly pupils, the entire process 
occupying five or ten minutes ; while during chapel prayer, 
I saw a young woman playing hide-and-seek behind the 
pillars. But my first week in the school revealed such a 
lack of honor, order, and respect as almost to dishearten me. 
I had come from an institution where all were in sympathy 
with my ideas and plans ; where my lightest wish was law ; 
where all were eager to learn, and the only strife was who 
should outstrip the rest. Here the contest was reversed, and 
the prize of public approval fell to the one who could most 
successfully avoid duty, break the rules, and escape 
punishment. 

xxiii 



Introduction 

Full of courage, however, and conscious of being in the 
right, I began the work of reform, and soon had the satisfaction 
of feeling that I had won the confidence and quiet support 
of the best students. Among the young men I was especi- 
ally successful and by showing them the value of their 
time, the necessity of an education, and the folly of throwing 
away their chances for life as they were doing, I got most of 
them fairly at work. Among the young women, however, it 
was different. The law-keepers were quiet and silent, 
though probably in the majority ; but the law-breakers were 
noisy and aggressive, and constantly sought an opportunity 
to interrupt the growing peace and studiousness of the 
school. They were restive under the new order of things, 
and planted themselves squarely in the way of every improve- 
ment, seeking every chance to make a noise that I could not 
officially notice, to utter a witty remark, or to raise a laugh. 
Determined not to study themselves, they did not intend 
that others should study. 

At last I resolved on a desperate remedy. It was an extra- 
ordinary case, and only extraordinary measures would avail. 
Having advised with members of the Board of Education 
and secured their approval and promise of support I decided, 
if necessary, to inflict corporal punishment. Accordingly, 
the next morning I bought a heavy raw-hide. I told the shop- 
keeper my object in the purchase, and carried the whip in 
my hand through the streets, and across the playground to 
the Academy. En j'OJite I announced to those who in- 
quired the reason of my carrying so unusual an implement 
for a teacher, that I proposed to be master of my school. I 
arranged all these preliminaries thus publicly in order to 
show my deliberate determination, and that, in whatever 
might happen, no one could afterward accuse me of having 
been actuated by passion. 

By the time I reached the platform, every pupil was in his 
seat, and as I laid the whip on the table before me, there was 
a death-like silence. There was no need of tinkling a bell 
about the room to obtain order on that occasion. My own 
voice trembled with suppressed emotion, and I was obliged 
xxiv 



Introduction 

to support myself against a chair as I began to talk. I nar- 
rated the history of the preceding year and contrasted the 
condition of the school with what it ought to be ; pictured 
the loss of time and opportunity, now gone irreparably; 
specified the rude and unscholarly habits that must hence- 
forth be discarded ; showed how the year had left them 
worse than it found them, and that they now stood laden 
with an incubus of folly and idleness unfitting them for 
further advance ; pointed out the fact that, to many of them, 
the present was the last year they would have in school and 
that they were squandering their only chance of an edu- 
cation ; impressed on their minds the advantages an edu- 
cated person had in society and life over an ignorant one ; 
and indicated just what might be done in one year of hard 
work, how evil habits might be broken, and good ones 
formed, should a start be made at once in the right 
direction. 

I then said I had been placed in control of the school to 
help those who desired to learn, and that it was my duty to 
give them a fair chance and to protect them from the idle 
ones who hindered their progress ; that the large majority 
of the pupils, especially of the young men, were anxious to 
reform the school and to make up as far as possible for lost 
time ; that the Board had promised me its assistance in any 
measure I saw fit to adopt, and that I was sure the best 
pupils would stand by me in any emergency ; that I was 
willing to assume any risk, and to suffer any consequences, 
however unpleasant ; that there were a few, chiefly among 
tlie young women, who had made light of every earnest word 
I had spoken, and were determined to defeat the reorgani- 
zation and upholding of the school ; that I had at last been 
driven to the only means left, and had deliberately resolved 
to resort to corporal punishment ; that it was a cruelty, but so 
was the spirit of insubordination that existed among them, 
and the responsibility must rest upon the heads of those who 
had compelled me to this course. 

I said I had no word of appeal to make to the law-breakers, 
for I had already exhausted my words of entreaty and expos- 

XXV 



Introduction 

tulation, and they had abundantly shown that their hearts 
were bent on evil, and that continually; but I did appeal to 
the lovers of law and order, to those who desired to work, to 
those who had come to school for a purpose, to those who 
were resolved to break with the past, and lead a new life; — 
those I begged to stand by my side in this supreme effort. 
With this imploration, I knelt down and prayed — prayed 
as I never prayed before in all my life that God would give 
me strength and grace to conquer that school ; and that His 
spirit might work mightily in the hearts of the pupils, filling 
them with a sense of justice, obligation and right, and in- 
spiring them with such a desire for order and love of duty as 
would shape and color all their future life. 

When I arose, I took up the raw-hide, and said, " I propose 
to flog the first pupil, girl or boy, who speaks aloud or leaves 
his or her seat ! " I then sat down and waited. No one 
stirred. The silence was oppressive. The tension was so 
great that few could command their minds sufficiently to 
study, though all kept their books before them, and looked 
at them with a show of work. Nearly a half-hour passed, 
and no movement of disorder had been made. I saw that 
the crisis was over, and said, " We will now take a recess, 
and I wish you would come to the desk and tell me how 
you feel about this whole matter." At the word, the school 
sprang up en ?nasse, the most of the pupils crowding around 
me, and pledging me their allegiance. It was a scene to 
melt the stoutest heart. We were all in tears and smiles. 
We shook hands right and left, and as we looked into each 
other's faces we took courage. 

While we were yet congratulating one another and re- 
joicing over the prospect before us, I felt the danger of 
a reaction after this high tension, and closed the school. 
I urged the pupils as they passed out to go directly home, 
not stopping on the way to talk over with any one or tell any- 
body else what had happened, but to seek their parents, 
describe the whole scene, and beg their advice ; and then if 
they cou/d Y>Y3.y, ask God's assistance and guidance in carry- 
ing out the pledges and resolves of that eventful morning, 
xxvi 



Introduction 

The afternoon came, and as the regular hour approached, 
the pupils assembled. They came in silently, and almost 
immediately took their places. All was expectation. I saw 
the peril of words at such a time. To the surprise of all, I 
mounted the rostrum, quietly announced the regular order, 
and with a sharp clang of the bell, called for the first recita- 
tions. This action threw every one back upon the fulfilment 
of his promises, and left the events of the forenoon standing 
out in bold relief. 

I never alluded to that morning's scene until the close of 
the term. On the last evening, in the midst of a merry social 
chat, I went to my desk, drew out from beneath the accum- 
ulated papers that never forgotten raw-hide, and formally 
presented it to the Senior Class. I had no use for it. With 
the surroundings of that night, it looked like a fossil of the 
Paleozoic Age; so we laid it up on a Museum shelf, un- 
marked, and it finally disappeared, no one ever told how, or 
where. 

The Academy, during the six years I remained at its head, 
gave me the opportunity of my life. I had never before been 
entirely unhampered. Now everything bore the odor of 
failure, and I was at liberty to make any change I pleased. 
Indeed, a change was desirable rather than otherwise. 
During my school experience, I had become convinced that 
the germinal idea of discipline was self-control; and that the 
true aim of the schoolmaster was not to teach the pupil how 
to be governed by another, but how to govern himself. I 
determined to adopt this method and mould the school in 
harmony with it. I at once sent away the monitor-teacher 
who had hitherto kept order in the study hall, abolished 
all rules and regulations — especially those that forbade 
whispering and leaving seats, and threw the school entirely 
upon its honor. I devoted my efforts, not to the execution 
of certain arbitrary rules, and to the detection and punish- 
ment of every petty offence, but to the development and 
enlightenment of the conscience of my pupils, and I spared 
neither time nor strength to elevate and tone the public sen- 
timent of the school. 

xxvii 



Introduction 

The effect was marvellous. Within a year or two the new 
system was in full working order. No teacher sat in the 
study hall, but the pupils controlled it themselves. They 
rang the bells, opened school, and called recesses and classes 
for recitations. They asked no permission to whisper or 
to leave their seats, but, each being a law unto himself, the 
decision was made before the bar of his own conscience, 
as to what was right or wrong in every case. I argued that 
he was necessarily a better judge of his own wants than 
the teacher could be. 

Classes came and went. Visitors would pass through the 
rooms and not an eye be lifted to notice them. If the teacher 
did not appear when a class assembled, it would immediately 
call some one to the chair to preside and begin work. When 
done, if the teacher had not yet come, the class would quietly 
return to the study hall. If a pupil saw a pencil mark on 
the wall, he would erase it ; a piece of paper on the floor, he 
would pick it up ; anything wrong, he would stop and right 
it. Let a band of music go by, or an alarm of fire be heard, 
and a pupil could not rush to the window, or leave his desk, 
without a hiss from the school and a general call to order. 
Many a time have I gone into a lower room, when a band 
was marching by, and found some wild, music-loving boy 
with his fingers stuck into both his ears, his head bent down 
over his book, and his brows knitted, in his earnest deter- 
mination to achieve the joy of a self- victory. ^ 

The effect of this scheme of government was seen in 
the harmonious relations established between teachers and 
pupils. The latter looked after much of the minutiae of the 
school, and afterward showed an interest in its welfare that 
was touching, indeed, to the true teacher. Thus, for example, 
one afternoon, after dismissal, while conversing with some 

1 This account of the results reached are taken from a paper 
that I read before the Convocation of the University of the State 
of New York, August 4, 1869. The general ideas I enter- 
tained on the subject of discipline are contained in my Lectures 
on "School Government" and "The Aim of the Teacher," which 
I gave repeatedly, by request, before educational conventions, 
xxviii 



Introduction 

patrons in my private room, I heard a loud noise upstairs ; a 
moment later a young man called at my door, and as I looked 
at him inquiringly, since I saw that he came from the scene 
of disturbance, he begged me not to be alarmed, as " it was all 
right." The confusion in the hall above increased, but I 
remained in my room, having full confidence in the correct- 
ness of the pupil's statement. In a little time the noise sub- 
sided, and soon after a committee waited upon me with the 

following statement : — " Mr. , who lately entered our 

class, has been very impertinent to Miss . We told him 

repeatedly that we would not have our teacher insulted. We 
gave him fair warning, but he laughed at us. This afternoon 
his conduct was especially aggravating, and so, after recita- 
tion, we met him in the hall, and one of us gave him a smart 
flogging. He begged, and promised to behave himself. We 
think the matter is all arranged now. We did not want to 
bother you, and thought we would better settle it ourselves." 
What could a teacher do in response to such an action of 
loyalty, but to stand with brimming eyes and beating heart, 
and rejoice ? 

My favorite classes still continued to be those in Science, 
and I now gave up my whole time to them. It was my cus- 
tom, after each recitation, to take careful notes of any defini- 
tion, explanation, or illustration that seemed specially effec- 
tive. Thus I preserved every thought and method struck 
out in the white-heat of the recitation room. Every day 
added to my store of good things. The text-books then in 
use contained from five to six hundred pages of fine type, 
and were often dull and uninteresting. The larger part 
of our pupils could devote only a single term of fourteen 
weeks to each branch of science. It was impossible for them 
to pass through the entire book in this limited time, and there- 
fore the teacher was accustomed to omit various chapters 
and sections as needed, and, when assigning each lesson, to 
indicate to the class what portions were to be prepared for 
recitation. The pupils used to mark these with a pencil, and 
thus go through the book, hopping from sentence to sentence, 
and paragraph to paragraph, in a style most destructive to 
xxix 



Introduction 

thorough scholarship. Oftentimes the teacher having no 
judgment as to what ought, and what ought not, to be pur- 
sued in the limited period allowed, would drop behind, and 
at the close of the term, rusli through the last part of the 
book at the rate of twenty-five pages per day. The dulness 
of the text, and this haphazard way of pursuing it, combined 
to render Science teaching, generally, exceedingly unpopu- 
lar. There were, of course, marked exceptions to this mode 
of teaching, but they served only to render the usual prairie 
monotony more noticeable. 

To meet the need of my classes, I gradually selected from 
the mass of each branch, those topics that the average pupil 
ought to pass through somewhat intelligently in a single 
term ; and that, when opportunity offered, he could develop, 
illustrate and apply, during a longer time. Under each of 
these topics, I collected experiments of a practical character 
and wrote rhetorical passages that might serve to rouse the 
attention and inspire the enthusiasm of my pupils. I be- 
lieved a fact to be no less a fact when warmed by the ima- 
gination, and hence did not hesitate to avail myself of that 
faculty, so powerful in youth. My success encouraged me, 
and gave me confidence in my plan. More and more, my 
instruction surged away from the regular text-books, and 
took on an oral character. 

At last, for my own convenience and that of my pupils, and 
also to gratify those of my scholars who had become teachers, 
I began to prepare my Chemistry notes for the press. In 
fact, I had already arranged to have them printed at a local 
press in Elmira, when an unlooked-for event changed my 
purposes. 

Dr. Woolworth, Secretary of the Regents of the Univer- 
sity, invited me to meet at Albany with several teachers from 
various parts of the state, to consider the condition and needs 
of education. At this gathering, the question of text-books 
in science was discussed. A general opinion was expressed 
that there was a demand for brief, comprehensive, practical 
works. It was suggested that the Regents be invited to pre- 
pare such texts, but Dr. Woolworth promptly declined this 

XXX 



Introduction 

responsibility, as being outside the province of the Board. 
I need not say how intently I listened to this discussion, in 
which, however, I took no part. 

At that time one usually saw on the title-page of school- 
books, the legend, " For the use of Academies and Colleges." 

I came home resolved to write a Chemistry for Academies 
and High Schools alone. On laying the subject before my 
wife, she approved the plan, and moreover offered me 
her aid in revising and copying manuscript, in reading 
proofs, etc. While engaged in this new work, I received a 
call from Mr. Knapp, an agent of Messrs. A. S. Barnes & 
Co., N. Y. As he was an old acquaintance, I told him what I 
was doing, and he reported the fact to the firm. Not long 
after, a correspondence was opened; then Mr. C. J. Barnes, 
a member of the house, called at my room, heard me read 
the chapter on Oxygen, and took my manuscript to New 
York ; finally, a contract was signed for its publication. 

The book appeared in the autumn of 1867. I shall never 
forget with what feelings I watched for the announcement 
of the first copy. When news came that a package had been 
sent me, I hurried to the express office, and, Sunday as it 
was, tugged the twenty-nine copies over to my boarding- 
place. What a Lilliput it seemed — only two hundred and 
twenty-five i4mo pages of coarse, well-leaded type — and 
what a contrast to the standard Brobdingnags of the day ! 

But it sold ! I could scarcely believe the news that came. 
I had never dared hope that anybody outside the circle of 
my personal friends would care to buy my book. Yet so it 
was. An edition of two thousand copies had gone at once, 
and a second edition was to be printed immediately. My 
publishers proposed that 1 should prepare other similar 
works in Science. Of course, I was only too happy to comply. 

The years to come were busy ones. The accompanying 
list of the dates of my copyrights shows how steadily I 
worked for the ensuing double-decade. It was easy for me to 
prepare the texts in sciences, as I had passed over the ground 
so often, had classified my material, and had much manu- 
script ready. But in 1 87 1 I entered a new field. Hearing that 
xxxi 



Introduction 

my publishers were getting out a new History of the United 
States, I had suggested to them some ideas derived from my 
experience in superintending history classes, which I hoped 
they would embody in the forthcoming book. Shortly after- 
ward a disagreement arose between them and the author 
of the said history, which resulted in the withdrawal of 
his manuscript. To my amazement, Messrs. Barnes then 
proposed that I should write the book myself. At first I 
declined, but at the urgent request of Mr. A. C. Barnes, the 
junior member of the firm, with whom I had then formed a 
close and warm friendship, I finally consented. As I had 
no wish to have my name appear on so many title-pages, 
and as my sciences were my pets, I stipulated that my name 
should not be announced in connection with the work. A 
long correspondence ensued between Mr. A. C. Barnes and 
myself, several pseudonyms being suggested until finally we 
agreed to name the book " Barnes' Brief United States." 

My wife had always made history a specialty in her studies, 
so I arranged for her to take a more prominent part in the 
preparation of this book than she had in that of the preceding 
ones. She revised and copied manuscripts, and read proofs 
as before, but, in addition, she now gathered material and 
wrote some of the most important and interesting notes. 
The success of the " Brief United States " was almost imme- 
diate, and when it was concluded to complete this series, my 
wife gradually assumed more work, until in the " Popular 
History of the United States," the " History of France," and 
the " General History," she prepared a definite portion of 
the manuscript. Every reader of the Barnes Series of Brief 
Histories recognizes her chapters on manners and customs 
as generic. 

In getting up these various books we spared neither labor 
nor expense. We visited Europe four times to gather ma- 
terial, attend lectures, and study the newest methods, 
spending in all fourteen months in the shadow of the British 
Museum. I associated with myself also the best help I 
could find. Prof. J. W. P. Jenks, A. M. of Brown Univer- 
sity, who had made Zoology a lifelong study and who had 
xxxii 



Introduction 

achieved a phenomenal success in teaching the subject in 
academies, was prevailed upon to become jointly interested 
with me in preparing this text. In Botany I secured the 
invaluable services of Prof. Alphonso Wood, A. M., the 
veteran author. In Chemistry I was aided greatly by 
Edward J. Hallock, of Columbia College, whose lengthy 
studies in German laboratories had furnished him with a 
fund of experience. My Physics manuscript was care- 
fully read by Prof. Thomas H. Core, A. M., of Owens Col- 
lege, Manchester, England, while many of my teacher 
friends, such as Prof. Harper of Maine, Dr. Armstrong of 
New York, and Supt. Jones of Pennsylvania, rendered me 
excellent assistance. In my Astronomy I was helped by 
Dr. Lewis Swift, of the Warner Observatory, who read the 
entire proof, by Dr. J. R. French of Syracuse, who revised 
the mathematical part, and by many teachers who freely 
gave me the fruits of their experience. In revising my 
Physiology I was indebted to Prof. Stowell, of the Cortland 
Normal School, whose aid and profound knowledge has 
rendered him an authority in many lines of this study. Thus 
on every hand I garnered in the aid of my fellow-laborers, 
who sympathized with my plan, and were glad to help me in 
its execution. 



TWENTY YEARS' WORK. 
1866-1886. 



My Chemistry manuscript was begun in 1866 to be prepared for 


the press. 




Copyrighted. 


1867. 


Chemistry. 


1869. 


Physics. 




Astronomy. 


1870. 


Key to Sciences. 




Geology. 


1871. 


United States' History. 


1872. 


Fourteen Weeks in Physiology. 




Zoology. 


c 


xxxiii 



Introduction 

1873. Chemistry — First Revision. 
1875. History of France. 

Popular History of United States. 
1877. Geology — First Revision. 

187S. Popular History of United States. — New Administra- 
tion added. 

Physics — First Revision. 
1879. Botany. 

Excelsior Studies in United States' History. 

United States' History — First Revision. 
18S0. United States' History — New Administration added. 
188 1. History of Ancient Peoples. 

1883. History of Mediaeval and Modern Peoples. 
General History. 

]History of Greece (with select readings). 

1884. Hygienic Physiology. 
Abridged Physiology. 
Astronomy — First Revision. 

1885. History of Rome (with select readings). 
United States' History — Second Revision. 



y^ 



JOEL DORMAN STEELE 



CHAPTER I 

THE GOOD FORTUNE OF BIRTH 

NO man of sane possibilities need be wholly the vic- 
tim of heredity, nor does the best descent insure 
exalted character. But it is one of the recompenses of 
intelligent, righteous, and devoted parenthood that its 
children generally carry into the working world, aspira- 
tions, tendencies, and purposes which perpetuate and 
increase the usefulness of their ancestry. The potency 
of lineage and environment was strikingly exemplified in 
the life of Joel Dorman Steele. 

He was one of a distinguished family, the earliest 
American progenitors of which were John and George 
Steele, brothers, who emigrated to America within ten 
years after the departure of the Mayflower. They be- 
longed to an important English family and gave to their 
posterity an honored coat of arms. John Steele, the 
ancestor of Joel Dorman Steele, led in 1635 a pioneer 
band from Massachusetts to Connecticut, where his party 
laid the foundations of the future Hartford. From him, 
a long line of notable descendants manifest a fine family 
excellence, many winning distinction as school men, 
soldiers, and clergymen. There was a Samuel who 
was deputy to the General Assembly in 1668-69 ^'^^ 



Joel Dorman Steele 

1672-77; a Samuel who married Mercy, granddaughter 
of Governor William Bradford of Plymouth Colony ; 
there was a Lavinia who married Hon. Augustus Porter 
of the famous Niagara Falls family and whose brother 
was Secretary of War under John Quincy Adams ; there 
was a Salmon who watched with the dead body of Gen- 
eral Warren, and who was one of a number of Revolu- 
tionary patriots. In the Steele genealogy the name of 
Allen or Allyn is found as early as in 1757 and is re- 
peated eight times, the last to bear it in the line with 
which this memoir has to do being the father of Dr. 
Steele. 

This Allen was born May 24, 1808, in Salisbury, New 
York, and was early left motherless, with the prospect 
of an uncertain fortune. But his mother on her death- 
bed, with tender and solemn admonition, had pressed upon 
her beloved son the claims of godliness. Her dying 
words were never forgotten, and at thirteen the lad joined 
the Methodist Church, feeling, even though so young, 
that he might some time be called to preach. At twenty- 
one he received his first appointment ; at twenty-five he 
entered upon the peace of home life, she who joined 
her destiny to his having passed but little beyond her 
childhood's years. Sabra Dorman, born September 13, 
18 1 6, was the daughter of Dr. Joel Dorman, gradu- 
ate from a New Haven Medical College, and of Olivia 
Lawrence, his wife, who belonged to one of the oldest 
and most respected families in Yates Co., New York. 

To Allen and Sabra Steele, in the hope of their youth, 
was born, on the 14th day of May, 1836, a son. The 
year that gave the babe to the arms of the mother, 
took from her, suddenly, her cherished father, but his 
honorable name, bestowed upon the little one, was des- 

2 



The Good Fortune of Birth 

tined to become famous throughout and beyond the 
nation. Of it he wrote nearly fifty years later, in a letter 
to his wife, inclosed in his last will : " My name I have 
tried by a life of earnest toil to make honorable, and I 
leave it unspotted, so far as I know, by any unworthy 
act of mine." 

The love and blessings of a dying mother went before 
the conscious intellectual intents and decisions of the 
boy " Dorman," as they had gone before those of his 
father, for he too was destined to lose the earthly proofs 
of maternal care while yet leaning upon them, and, by 
the laying on of the hands of bereavement, was early 
appointed to the discipline of pain. 

Thus, at the age of fifteen, he stood with the dawnings 
of future fervors in his boyish face, touched with the 
grief of his recent loss. He was wan from the wasting 
of a fever like that which had deprived him of his 
mother and which had brought him within sound of the 
whispering shores of death. Behind him lay an ancestry 
which by its aspirations, its mental and moral vigor, its 
conscientiousness, and its recognition of all righteous 
claims had resulted in the exalted nature which was his 
from the cradle. It is probable also that the ancestral 
capacity for rigid adherence to the sense of duty, and 
of uncomplaining acceptance of physical discomfort if 
necessary to spiritual and intellectual attainment, had 
sinlessly defrauded the great soul of adequate housing. 
This inherited bodily frailty made his whole existence a 
marvellous example of conquering courage. For 

" The child grew and waxed strong in spirit." 

Of every man, whose occupation touches the diviner 
things of life, it may be said, as truly as of the poet, that 

3 



Joel Dorman Steele 

he is " born, not made ; " and of none is this more 
notably true than of the teacher. No discerning stu- 
dent of Hfe can read the story, from birth to death, of 
the fifty years allotted to the subject of this memoir 
without reverent perception of the office to which he 
was pre-ordained. 

Not that the young boy had any precocious intimation 
of the line of work he would pursue. But from his first 
intellectual awakening, with intuitive selection, he appro- 
priated, omitted, accepted, rejected, sought, and shunned, 
according to the needs of one steadily growing toward 
the light, and into full flower and fruitage. 

His religious nature was early stirred, and the quiet 
tastes of the student showed themselves, with the in- 
stincts of that delicacy and fine, sensitive insight which 
were always his marked characteristics. But along with 
these traits, moderating them and insuring symmetry, 
were the fresh young impulses and delights of one 
who loved nature in all her moods. Added to this sav- 
ing grace was a wholesome ability to turn to prosaic 
tasks, with cheerful pleasure in their small and practical 
details. 

And over all, and through all his days, dominating 
every desire and animating every deed, the faith he kept 
with his conscience made possible that which he became, 
— one able to vivify the thought of his generation and to 
waken high enthusiasms in the young. 

The world took note of three lines of effort in which 
Dr. Steele was eminently capable. As Student, Teacher, 
and Author he earned its attention and applause. And, 
marking the steps that led to his eminence, we find 
in his youngest endeavors indications of what he 
became. 

4 



The Good Fortune of Birth 

At nine years of age, as he himself has told us, he 
began to feel " the first real zest of a student's love of 
work." At eleven he wrote his first composition. He 
was then a member of a Troy, N. Y., school, the 
" Boys' Academy," where he began Greek and French, 
having already done some fundamental study in Latin. 

The composition, entitled "Albany," and dated Sep- 
tember 26, 1847, is preserved, its painstaking, childish 
hand setting forth those facts about the capital city which, 
to the boy, were most conspicuous. With the serious- 
ness due the gravity of his task he wrote the little treatise. 
It is very exact in description, expressed in noticeably 
correct language, and redeemed from too precocious 
precision by some refreshing mistakes in spelling, and — 
after a ponderous paragraph specifying the strength of 
materials and thickness of its walls — the confident 
assertion that the Capitol "is probaly the most per- 
manent building in the world." 

This initial production proves how early its writer 
began to exercise his quick and careful observation and 
how soon the tendency to impart to others the knowl- 
edge he had gained showed itself. It was the instinct 
of the teacher. 

The first experience of the future master of schools 
covered a part of the summer after he was seventeen 
years old. The story of its dull and dragging days he 
has recorded. He vaguely felt the failure of the lifeless 
routine to which custom bound him. It bore down the 
heart of the boy, not yet quickened by the dawning dis- 
cernments that finally illuminated his work with splendid 
intelligence. 

His next teaching, at twenty, was the shift of a college 
student in need of money to further his education. 



Joel Dorman Steele 

Between it, and that summer term against the monotony 
of which his individuality had protested, lay the industry 
of many undertakings. Farming, book-keeping, reading, 
writing, and clerical work in a publishing house had 
been the varying occupations advancing him toward an 
efficient readiness which made him better capable of 
instruction. 

However he was as yet impelled simply by the acquis- 
itiveness of a learner. He was gathering, but it had not 
yet been shown him how he should give. It was only 
when the appeal of other minds had moved his own to 
helpful response that he heard and knew his call. Once 
knowing it he was ever faithful to its persuasion, and 
thenceforth was pre-eminently the teacher. Thus, in 
1875, when he had become widely known as an author, 
he called his address, delivered before the New York 
State Teachers' Association, " What a New York Teacher 
saw in the German Schools." 

His first public honors were won by his work in the 
schoolroom when, in 1870, the Regents of the Univer- 
sity of the State of New York conferred upon him the 
degree of Doctor of Philosophy " in consideration of 
eminent success as a teacher." The next year he was 
elected President of the New York State Teachers' 
Association, and in 1883 he became a life member of 
the National Educational Association, at which time it 
was said of him, " In all things he has undertaken he 
has acquitted himself with honor, and imparted a nobil- 
ity and dignity to the teachers' profession." Among 
other words spoken in his memory by an educational 
writer in 1886 were these: 

" His delicate health forced him to forego many attractive 
engagements and much congenial pleasure, but he never 

6 



The Good Fortune of Birth 

allowed it to shut him out from the closest intimacy with the 
brotherhood of teachers, and failing strength abated not a 
jot of interest in them and all their concerns. We all 
remember, at the close of a Holiday Conference last De- 
cember, his allusion to himself as on the downward slope of 
life, and his earnest wish that he might still be counted one 
of us." 

Only they who are guided by the intuitions of right- 
eous intelligence so find and fulfil their vocation. 



CHAPTER II 

THE GROWING TEACHER 

LOOK through the long roll of renowned names that 
have enriched the history of our repubUc in every 
Hne of noble accomplishment, and realize the debt the 
nation owes the farm. Among them all it would be hard 
to find that of any man who, if he were not the son of a 
farmer, had not in some way come into touch with farm 
life during his formative years. 

Joel Dorman Steele was no exception. His mother 
was daughter of a man who had resigned the life of an 
efficient physician for that of a farmer ; her clergyman 
husband had bought a country place when their son was 
but half-grown, and through its outdoor duties and 
pleasures the delicate lad gained in health and strength ; 
during school-life he bent alternately above his books 
and over the hoe, the rake, the sickle, and the scythe ; 
thus, he took to the tasks of the desk the steadiness of 
plodding, patient, rural industry ; and carried to the 
fields the quickened apprehensions of the scholar, which 
lifted him above the mere performance of homely labor 
and taught him the inner suggestions of seed-time and 
harvest. To the end of life Dr. Steele was a lover of the 
soil and its rewards, and the fresh spirit of such a lover 
permeated all his literary work. 

On the home farm at West Barre, Orleans County, 
New York, in the summer of 1858, the recent collegiate, 



The Growing Teacher 

working, and waiting for the next thing, received a call 
to teach Greek, Latin, and the Natural Sciences in Mexico 
Academy, Oswego County, New York. John Raymond 
French, afterward Dean of the College of Liberal Arts 
and Vice-Chancellor of Syracuse University, was at that 
time Principal at Mexico, and, needing an instructor, 
had written to certain of the Faculty of Genesee Col- 
lege for advice. The result was the receipt of such 
recommendation of " Mr. J. D. Steele, a regular gradu- 
ate of Genesee College," as brought about his entrance 
upon the duties of a teacher's profession in August, 1858. 
Mexico, a village of about a thousand people, had 
become an educational centre on account of its Acad- 
emy, one of the oldest and best conducted in the State. 
A list of its text-books at that time shows that the course 
was laid out with intelligent care and wise choice of 
authors. Besides the solid branches, it contained also 
some accomplishments of the day, such as the study 
of melodeon music, and the making of ornamental wax- 
work, flowers, wreaths, crosses, and the like. The melo- 
deon merits a passing mention. When first introduced, 
it was esteemed a triumph in the evolution of reed in- 
struments. It was then without pedals, the bellows 
being worked with the elbows, the box-like frame rest- 
ing on a table or the lap, the size easily admitting of 
the latter* disposal. Its capacity was little more than 
four octaves and the keys somewhat resembled those of 
the modern typewriter. Later it was enlarged, put on 
its own legs and indulged in an increased inflation be- 
cause of its pedals. It had at this stage become the 
immediate forerunner of the cabinet organ, and in addi- 
tion to the pleasure its manipulation gave to modest 
music lovers it was found sufficient for the practical 

9 



Joel Dorman Steele 

study of counterpoint. Obsolete as it long since be- 
came, it served well the times for which it was invented, 
and in 1858 twenty thousand of the improved forms 
were sold in the United States. 

On taking up his work in Mexico the new professor 
became a member of the principal's family, and the 
familiar relations thus established founded an intimacy 
which was without break until the death of Dr. Steele. 
After this event the sympathy between the households 
was, if possible, yet deeper. Later, when Dean French 
had also been taken, there still survived the fidelities 
and hospitalities of an earnest friendship, manifested by 
those who, each in her place, had shared most closely 
the lives of the distinguished men. 

For three years, with an ardor which marked his 
career from first to last, the young teacher performed 
the duties of his position, and even if the limits of that 
time had bounded his professional life, yet would the 
lesson of his service be well worth the conning. Four 
decades have preserved in and beyond the little town 
many memories and illustrations of the essential quality 
of his power. 

Born instructor as he was, he manifested from the 
first his intense yearning, not only to teach the truth but 
to teach the application of truth to life, and his solici- 
tude for his pupils can only be expressed by the old 
evangelistic phrase : "A burden for souls." "Honor" 
had already become his watchword. 

The second year of his stay in Mexico saw him, by 
the resignation of Principal French, promoted to be 
master of the school, and it is touching to see how his 
apprehension of accountability warred with the natural 
buoyancy and high spirits of his youth. 

10 



The Growing Teacher 

In an institution which had so advanced a curriculum, 
there were students fitted by age for social fellowship 
with the principal, and constantly he guarded the dignity 
of his position against any personal slips of decorum 
which, however innocent in themselves, might imperil 
his authority and the good of the school. To one of 
warm and active friendliness this required a nice balance 
of judgment and conduct. 

His earnestness to avoid careless intercourse with his 
pupils is well illustrated by an extract from a letter 
written to Mrs. Steele in i860, when she was absent on 
a visit. 

He was then but twenty-four years of age, and after 
an evening of merry relaxation in company with several 
of the older scholars, he wrote : 

" I intended to-night to have a pleasant, social chat, but 
the first I knew the talk was at sixes and sevens, as it so 
often has been before. ... It does not seem becoming to 
my position. . . . Pray for me that I may learn to influence 
others aright. ... I have been terribly lonesome all day 
and when they came in I was glad, thinking it would render 
the evenuig more tolerable. But it would have been better to 
be lonesome than to laugh and talk as I did to-night. Not 
worse than I have done dozens of times before, but worse 
than I meant to do again. . . . O, let us both try to live in a 
way more becoming our profession. You are better than I 
am. I feel your restraining influence and I need it. . . . 
We shall travel together toward Heaven and mayhap induce 
others to go with us — those who look to us as patterns, 
those who put confidence in us. Let us make them respect 
our conduct and example." 

The conduct he deplored is shown by the confessions 
of the letter to have been merely a boyish abandonment 
to gay conversation, badinage and laughter, common to 

II 



Joel Dorman Steele 

the happy young the world over. How httle he merited 
self-reproach may be judged from the words of those 
who viewed his work of that time, either as outside 
adults or as students. 

Said Dean French, in a reminiscence over thirty years 
afterward : 

" He was eminently successful, enthusiastic, untiring and 
greatly beloved by his pupils. Thorough as he was as an 
instructor, he was no less efficient as a disciplinarian. The 
position of Principal of the Academy he filled with great 



Charles L. Stone, an eminent lawyer of Syracuse, 
New York, was, in 1895, requested by a friend to give 
his impressions of Dr. Steele. He had been a pupil 
in the Mexico Academy, at about the age of thirteen, 
and his response to the request was an eloquent and 
discriminating letter. Evidently, in turning back to the 
memory of his school days, the very emotions and infer- 
ences which had moved the boy's mind revived to impel 
the pen of the man. 

" He was my first ideal man," wrote Mr. Stone. " Rather 
tall, spare, light hair worn long, a clear and scholarly face, 
young, a general favorite alike with pupils and parents, an 
excellent and enthusiastic teacher, a good executive — a dis- 
ciplinarian rather by moral force and a bearing that uncon- 
sciously turned the thoughts and ambitions of the boys 
toward honorable and manly courses. He carried about 
with him an atmosphere of inspiration to youth. 

" I was young, I knew him but a short time, my impres- 
sions were boyish, I had no intimate acquaintance with him, 
as the conditions forbade, but I admired him and I remem- 
ber I liked to watch him and observe his movements. Still 
I regarded him with some awe ! He seemed to me on a 

12 



The Growing Teacher 

plane which I might only hope to attain, if at all, after pro- 
tracted study and discipline. 

" I think his eyes were blue. Once he opened them in 
the midst of his morning prayer at chapel, and it seemed to 
me as if the light from them penetrated through the boy 
whose whispers had disturbed his devotions. 

" Perhaps this may not be of interest to others. I sat 
down, not intending to say so much, and have wandered on 
in a sort of unreserve I am not accustomed to. The im- 
pressions I record were those made upon the mind of a 
young boy unacquainted with the world." 

It is doubtful whether any tribute to a teacher could 
be of more worth than this fresh and fair remembrance 
of childish appreciation. By it is unquestionably proven 
the influence of character on the young, and its value as 
a teacher's qualification. Unformulated until after years 
had calmed the impulses, the discernments of the inex- 
perienced boy bear the test of time, and minify many a 
labored estimation. 

A fitting addition to the words just quoted are those 
written after Dr. Steele's death by a lady of unusual 
culture — a pupil of a later academy. They tell the 
same story of guiding and inspiring power : 

" Looking back, I am more and more amazed — as 
my comprehension becomes more perfect — at the wonder- 
ful knowledge of human nature he possessed and the 
skill with which he touched its springs of action. He 
was almost clairvoyant in his ability to read individual 
needs and idiosyncrasies, and a genius in providing for 
and directing them. Far and wide over the world those 
whom he trained are doing brave battle for ' honor ' and 
earnest work, with an ever-growing admiration for the 
delicacy yet strength of the methods he used in imparting 
enthusiasm." 

13 



Joel Dorman Steele 

What a recompense to him, who stood in the first days 
of his professional ambitions, somewhat overborne with 
the charge he had to keep, could he have known that 
men and women of mark would some day see how his 
hand had touched the plastic period of their lives ! But 
amid all his busy plans for service, he asked for himself 
only the consciousness of duty done ; the ability to en- 
large the vision of others ; a fair reward for his tasks ; 
and some leisure, when his work was done, for a book, 
a little garden, a bit of travel, and the peace of bodily 
rest to fit him for yet greater exertions. 



M 



CHAPTER III 

THE MARRIAGE OF TRUE MINDS 

WHEN the new teacher entered Mexico Academy, 
the members of the faculty, as well as the 
students, were personally unknown to him, and he had 
studied with interest a catalogue containing their names. 
It chanced, however, that a change had been made after 
the catalogue was printed, and he was, therefore, entirely 
unprepared, when he met the music teacher, to see a 
dark-haired, brown-eyed young lady of vivacious, candid 
manner and an altogether indescribable charm. 

Forty years later, a lady, who was present when the 
pair were introduced, said : 

" It is impossible to give in words any idea of the look 
with which Professor Steele regarded Miss Baker. Between 
his evident admiration and his surprise his face was a study. 
I think it was a case of love at first sight. At any rate it 
was soon plain that something was likely to happen." 

In less than a year from the time the two met, the 
something which their friends had foreseen happened, 
the wedding taking place at the home of the bride's 
father early in the summer vacation. The marriage was 
hastened by the prospective groom's unexpected election 
to the office of principal of the academy, an advance- 
ment which made him more confident of his ability to 
become at once the responsible head of a household. 
Miss Baker's father. Rev. Gardner Baker, united the pair. 

15 



Joel Dorman Steele 



The wisdom of the immediate union was noted from the 
first. " There seemed," said a gentleman, once a pupil 
of both, " to be a natural affinity of soul, and the mar- 
riage was apparently one of those ordained by Heaven." 

" I never knew," said Dean French, after the death of 
Dr. Steele, "a happier married life than was theirs. 
Their mutual devotion was remarkable." 

Mrs. Steele, like her husband, was the child of a 
Methodist parsonage, and knew the wandering life of 
the itinerant's family. Her father relinquished the hope 
of a university education under the conviction that he 
must not postpone his entrance upon work as a minister. 
He often referred to this turning point in his life, won- 
dering what would have been his career had it not been 
so changed by his emotional religious nature. 

Those conversant with circuit riding in the first quarter 
of the century know something of the sacrifice his deci- 
sion implied. But he cheerfully did the things he felt 
God had given him to do, with no thought of complaint. 

It is likely that this quality of happy surrender was 
one of his gifts to his daughter, whose steadfast associa- 
tion in all her husband's work, of every kind, so sped the 
tasks of fresh and hopeful endeavor and held up his 
hands in weary days. 

Gardner Baker's wife, to whom he was married in 
1827, was Miss Esther Scott, daughter of Captain Enos 
Scott, a man prominent in the " general training days " 
of long ago. Of those days Mrs. Steele once wrote to a 
friend : 

" They went out of date in my early childhood, but I dis- 
tinctly remember them as a time of glitter and noise, con- 
nected with feathers, drums, hard gingerbread, and molasses 
taffy." 

16 



The Marriage of True Minds 

Miss Scott became a wife at eighteen, entering at once 
on a life that knew at first many mutations, throughout 
and beyond which to the end of her eighty-seven years 
she preserved a beautiful sweetness of manner, unaffected 
dignity, and pure refinement. The last struggling words 
that came to her lips, when the death change was swift 
upon her, were a feeble " Thank you." 

The child of such parents found in their very depriva- 
tions a stout-hearted courage that made her able to 
engage life with cheer for herself and others. For, while 
the mean-spirited when they meet obstacles turn back 
to obscurity, the superior develop overcoming force and 
rise above every difficulty. This has been the glory of 
our Republic, and has brought the children of high- 
minded men and women, who have known the pecuniary 
limitations of the nobler professions, to every place of 
exalted trust and celebrity. 

The married years of Dr. and Mrs. Steele were dis- 
tinguished by a felicity and concord unusual even among 
the happily united. The stressful and fervid nature of 
the man needed the less strenuous but equally aspiring 
and wholly sympathetic nature of the woman. She 
brought to his intellectual walks an ability to keep beside 
him, whatever path he pursued. She parried his self- 
distrust with a faith in his purposes, and suggested 
methods which gave him cheerful expectation of the 
outcome. She met his discouragements with elastic 
good spirits ; she soothed his pains with her compassion ; 
she welcomed him from the daily conflict of life to the 
peace of a perfect home, — she both leaned upon and 
uplifted his heart. 

There were occasional separations for a longer or 
shorter period, on account of business, miscellaneous 
2 17 



Joel Dorman Steele 

duties, or the need of rest. These occurrences, so 
regrettable to both, gave rise, through the habit of daily 
letters, to a voluminous correspondence, which fortu- 
nately preserves the passing incidents of their days, their 
familiar talks of mutual joys and sorrows, and their un- 
reserved expression as to current life and thought. While 
most of this interchange is too sacred for the public 
eye, portions of it will be used in the pages to follow to 
illustrate the character and motives of him whose story 
they tell. 

The letters of Dr. Steele everywhere unconsciously 
disclose his universally humane heart, his affection for his 
home, and his faith in her who made it home to him. 
All the way from the effluent sentences of the husband 
of twenty-three, to the time of the last absence of Mrs. 
Steele, but a few weeks before his death, there is one 
unvarying note of fond allegiance and trust. 

In i860 : " I am longing to see you. I am running over 
with points I want to consult you about and which I hardly 
care to put upon paper. Many little items I have gathered 
and heard of I am aching to talk over with you." 

Feb. 1862, from camp: "How I long to see you! It 
seems as if I could not wait longer — that I must see you 
immediately. It is useless to write more, as I should only 
say the same thing over and over again. I keep my pen 
moving simply to repeat the same refrain : ' I want to see my 
wife.' " 

From camp, 1862 : " I miss your presence, your conversa- 
tion, our home —that haven of rest. How we shall prize it 
if we are ever united within its walls again ! " 

"June 29, 1863, 9 P.M., Bachelor's Hall. It is getting 
mighty lonesome here and I wish so much for your return. 
But I believe I agreed not to say a word of that sort, so I 
take it all back." 

18 



The Marriage of True Minds 

1867 : " Don't stay two weeks unless necessary. Year by 
year you are becoming more essential to my life and happi- 
ness — becoming more and more a part of me." 

1867 : " I wish you were back here. We were going to 
have such good times writing that book together," 

In 1 87 6 he preceded Mrs. Steele to the Centennial 
Exposition at Philadelphia, where, during a part of the 
time he was in company with Rev. Dr. A. W. Cowles, 
President of Elmira College, who was considerably below 
Dr. Steele in stature. 

"Machinery Hall, May 17th, 1876. 

" My dear Wife, — I thought I would send you a greet- 
ing from the Machinery Hall of the exhibition by means of 
our new typewriter which I have just purchased. My aman- 
uensis writes beautifully — do you not think so? I am enjoy- 
ing myself, so far, mainly in learning to use my legs — the 
principal thing required here. It takes a fifty cent scrip to 
get in. After that all you need is pedal extremities. I think 
I am about half an inch shorter than when I came this 
morning, having worn thus much off. If I remain here this 
week I fear I shall have to look up to the College President. 
But enough of this. Great is the Centennial, of which I am 
one. May you soon be another. 

" Yours pedestrianly, 

"J. DORMAN." 

January, 1877, Mrs. Steele was in Watertown assisting 
in preparations for the golden wedding of her parents, 
and her husband had resolved that he would not mar 
her pleasure by frequent mention of his loneliness during 
her absence. It transpired, however, that she wrote him 
on Christmas Day and stated that the holiday had not 
been perfectly happy without him. In reply he said : 

" I am glad you were not happy on that day any more than 
I was. I did n't know but you would be glad to be rid of me 

19 



Joel Dorman Steele 



just for a little holiday. O, you poor old half-of-a-scissors ! 
You can't cut without the other half ! There is no use 
in making believe. You would better be honest as I have 
been and say you were ' gloomy.' Well, I will try to worry 
through the month in some way. ... I did not mean to say 
a word about missing you. But, as you broached the sub- 
ject yourself, I could not keep still any longer. Now have 
I said too much and ' put my foot into it ? ' I fear so. I 
take it all back. I have not lisped a syllable. I • deny the 
allegation and defy the alligator.' So then — we do not miss 
you at all. We are all delighted to have you gone to Water- 
town. It is a daily relief to have a vacant chair. We count 
the days and dread your return. Could n't you stay longer 
just as well as not ? 

" Peacefully, happily, joyfully yours, 

"J. D. S." 

Nov. 27, 1879: "It is Thanksgiving! Three years ago 
to-day I wrote up Valley Forge in the Centennial History, 
and Brother Viall was here to dinner. Two years ago we 
were in London with the Chapins. One year ago you were 
here and we had a jolly time. It is very dull now, and even 
the turkey looked lonesome." 

Mrs. Steele was at the Thousand Islands, August 23, 
1880, historical writing, then under way, absorbing both 
her own and her husband's time. She had found it 
impossible to work at home, owing to interruptions, 
growing out of her wide acquaintance and social nature. 
In a letter, largely devoted to the interchange of thought, 
plan, and opinion as to their co-labors. Dr. Steele said : 

" It is a great sacrifice on my part to let you stay. I 
miss you so much. ... I feel a sense of watit all the time 
you are absent. Frequently I stop my reading or my writ- 
ing or my thinking. How can I, I say, get along longer 
without my wife ! Every hour something comes up to make 
me wish you were here. I am so accustomed to refer every- 

20 



The Marriage of True Minds 

thing to you, to advise with you as a second self. But I 
must stop or you will think I am getting sentimental with 
advancing years — a fall you could never forgive." 

All the world is acquainted through some medium 
with the language of love and the devotions of courtship 
and early married days. But too rarely is it familiar 
with a tender constancy that, with ever new attractions, 
gilds all the changing years of a long married life. And 
the story of an unwavering mutual affection is as captiv- 
ating to the human heart as the best story of endeavor, 
victory, and fame. Now and then it falls out that the 
tale of endeavor, victory, and fame is inseparably woven 
with that of the mutual unwavering love. So was it to 
be in the history of Joel Dorman Steele. 



CHAPTER IV 

" war's red techstone " 

Captain Steele's Commission 

To Joel D. Steele. 

WE, reposing especial trust and confidence, as well in 
your patriotism, conduct, and loyalty, as in your 
integrity and readiness to do us good and faithful service, 
Have appointed and constituted and by these Presents do 
appoint and constitute you, the said Joel D. Steele, Captain 
in the 8ist Regiment New York Volunteers with rank from 
Oct. nth, 1861. You are therefore to observe and follow 
such orders and directions as you shall, from time to time 
receive from our Commander-in-Chief of the Military forces 
of our said State, or any other 3'our Superior Officer accord- 
ing to the Rules and Discipline of War, and hold the said 
Office in the manner specified in and by the Constitution 
and Laws of our said State, and of the United States; in 
pursuance of the trust reposed in you, and for so doing this 
shall be your commission. In testimony Whereof, We 
have caused our Seal for Military Commissions to be here- 
unto affixed. 

Witness : Edwin D. Morgan, Governor of our said State, 
Commander-in-Chief of the Military and Naval forces of the 
same, at our city of Albany, the nineteenth day of February, 
eighteen hundred and sixty-two. 

E. D. Morgan. 
Passed the Adj. Gen. Office, 

Ass't Adj. Gen. Dr. McCan Campbell. 

It was while Professor Steele was in Mexico that the 
great political and sectional agitations of the times cul- 

22 



" War's Red Techstone " 

minated in our Civil War, engaging the powers and 
absorbing the enthusiasms of the best men both north 
and south. It was impossible that leaders of thought 
and feeling should not, everywhere, come to the front. 
They were wanted, to exhort, to inspire, to promote, 
to guide. And in the community where the rumors 
of war found him, our book-lover, home-lover, man- 
lover, and peace-lover became the advocate of conflict. 

Intensely loyal himself, he put into words the fire of 
his own heart and kindled a self-sacrificing flame in the 
hearts of others. He stimulated patriotism, directed 
zeal, and pointed out to the hesitating the duty of the 
hour. Under the urgency of his ardor, many sprang 
forward to become the defenders of the Union, and the 
speech-maker soon became convinced that an additional 
company might be raised if he would go with it to the 
front. 

With him to see a duty was to do it, and within a few 
months after the first call for volunteers, school and 
home were left behind, and in the far South, Captain 
Steele v^^as enduring the hardships of a soldier's fortune. 
What this great change cost him no one can estimate, 
unless he has himself turned from the dear things of life 
and love, to the distasteful routine of a pursuit for which 
nature never intended him, and against which the train- 
ing of his past had intensified his inherent antagonism. 

An old Mexico pupil of Dr. Steele writes : 

" His patriotism impressed me as a genuine enthusiasm, 
unmixed with any baser motive. A sacrifice it seemed to 
me — a serious loss to the Academy and to the community 
his departure certainly was — yet an object lesson that 
strengthened the patriotism of many. To him it appeared 
to be a f natter of course, wh&n his country called, to respond, 

23 



Joel Dorman Steele 



and to respond with alacrity and zeal — not as to the per- 
formance of a dull duty nor yet without appreciation of the 
significance of the response. He did not rush in blindly. 
He was mindful of possible consequences and of the cost. 
He knew he might be called upon to leave his beloved work 
and his lovely and attractive wife forever. Yet he did not 
turn back." 

And now a strange, new life opened before him. Of 
it he daily wrote, with the eloquent and yearning love 
of one whose heart beat back to wife and home, but 
always with the firm resolution of the patriot. 

" I go forth," he said, in a farewell letter to his pupils, 
" to meet the fate of the future with neither murmur nor 
hesitation. He who marks out the path, sustains with a 
strange and wonderful strength him who walks therein." 

That it was, indeed, " a strange and wonderful 
strength," the story of but a tithe of his laborious and 
heavy experience, and its piteous depletion of his vital- 
ity, verifies. 

The following extracts from letters to Mrs. Steele 
show his craving for the things of peace, his suffering 
under existing conditions, his consciousness of possibili- 
ties and his undeviating intent. Before his active cam- 
paigning he wrote from Camp Rathbun, Albany, N. Y., 
Feb. 6, 1862 : 

" I feel that camp life is demoralizing in the extreme. 
The ennui bites like a sharp tooth all the day long." And 
again: "The whole Sabbath has seemed like a Babel. But 
I have enlisted in a good cause and would not turn back, 
though I know I am injuring myself — phj^sically, at least. I 
owe a debt to these men who have enlisted under me, and I 
must stand by them, aid them, and bring them home again." 

April 10, 1862 : "Visions of a quiet home after the priva- 
tions and dangers of war fill my dreams by day and night. 

24 



" War's Red Techstone " 

Yet my mind is perfectly clear, my hand steady, my duty 
plain, conscience at rest. I do not regret coming. It is 
said that danger sometimes brushes away the mists from the 
mind. It has done so for me. In the present uncertainty I 
am settled and would return neither for love, money, nor 
position. My place is here! My heart rejoices that I am 
honored with the privilege of fighting for my country — per- 
haps dying in her defence. Death in such a cause may ren- 
der even a plain man glorious. I pray God, however, if it 
is consistent with His plans for the deliverance of my beloved 
country, that he may spare my life. If not I shall bow my 
head in surrender, grateful that I am deemed worthy to be 
a part of the ransom which must be paid for the regenera- 
tion and purification of my native land." 

April 17: "We have marched about twenty miles since 
eight o'clock. We had a terribly tedious time under a scald- 
ing sun. The whole region was destroyed and laid waste — 
houses burned, fences gone, trees cut down, and every- 
thing reduced to a state of nature, and yet enough left to 
show us how war is the enemy of civilization. You cannot 
imagine what a fearful thing war is, how utterly it ruins 
every interest and beggars a country. I have read it all, 
but newtr felt it before." 

Date lost : " Yesterday, for the first time I found a Dan- 
delion in full blossom. I could have knelt and kissed the 
little opening flower, it recalled home so vividly. I thought 
that there, as here, it is Spring and dandelions are opening 
at its call. For April has rolled away the stone from the 
sepulchre of winter and bidden the flowers come forth. 
There, at home, the old, yellow, homely dandelions are 
springing up at the brookside, in the meadows, clustering 
under fallen trees, nestling in the sweet grass and pouring 
up the hill till they tint the whole ground with yellow — as 
if autumn had left behind this one of all her splendid tints. 
There, everywhere, are dandelions in the glory of royalty, 
the gaudy color of gold — here was one little dandelion half 
hid in fallen leaves. Yet here by the brookside it spake as 
never flower spake — ■ except to strangers and wanderers, 

25 



Joel Dorman Steele 

singing to me the whole song of ' Home Sweet Home,' with 
all its variations, while on my heartstrings was played an 
accompaniment that brought the tears to my eyes, until I 
longed to lie down on the grass beside that simple flower 
and weep like rain. Did you ever pluck a flower from a 
grave, and lay it by to wither — yet as a memory of the 
past to be always green? So reverently did I pluck that 
dandelion and treasure it for memory's sake." 

April — no date: "It has rained hard for several days. 
Our tent leaks like a sieve. We put rubber blankets under 
our beds and also over us at night. This morning I found 
my stockings wet through, although they were on my cot. 
We do not use our cots at present as they are too cold with 
only one woollen blanket for each man. This morning my 
hands shake with the chill as I write. We cannot warm 
much at the campfires because of the wind. We roast 
our faces until our heads ache and our eyes fill with tears 
while our backs become wet to the skin and our feet are 
in the mud. I have feared more rheumatism from expo- 
sure, but it does not trouble me at present. And after all 
we are better off than the private soldiers. I am often 
ashamed to have more than my poor men." 

April 19: " This afternoon the boys raised a liberty pole 
in front of the Colonel's quarters. He was much pleased. 
I could not but contrast my situation with that of last year, 
when I raised another pole — at home. Sic transit gloria 
pedagogibiis ! Then I spoke most sincerely of patriotism, of 
heroism, of the red, the white, the blue. To-day I practise 
the principles I then propounded." 

May 11:" Every one is inspired with a supreme desire 
to reach the goal of all our hopes and anxieties. I catch 
new enthusiasm and want to press on and be one of the 
number to march through the streets of the confederate 
capital, to the stirring music of 'Yankee Doodle' — as we 
did through Williamsburg the other day." 

May 12 : "We have seldom had time to cook our pork, 
and have had no coffee or sugar ; so we have been driven to 
live upon raw pork and hard bread. During our forced 

26 



" War's Red Techstone '* 

march the hot sun poured down on us with tropic sever- 
ity, suffocating clouds of dust swept into our faces, our 
heavy burdens weighed us down, and yet when, overcome, 
our bodies sank heavily to the earth, came constantly that 
urgent command, ' Forward, Forward ! ' I will not describe 
the journey. It is too painful to me even in the retrospect. 
I am now sore and weak, and my nerves throb and tremble 
so that I can hardly guide my pen. And yet — Hurrah! 
On to Richmond ! " 

May 14 (his birthday) : " At seven in the morning we were 
ready for a march. Two hundred thousand men with all army 
material were to be pushed through in some manner. . . . You 
cannot imagine the difficulties of such an enterprise. There 
were frequently places where we had to cross deep streams, 
one man at a time on a single log. Again, the mud drove 
us into the woods, where ranks were broken and passage 
was delayed. Then a wagon would collapse in the midst of 
a defile and a stop or a file-around in single rank would re- 
sult. These delays in a train twenty miles long were of 
constant occurrence, and at five o'clock in the afternoon we 
had advanced three-quarters of a mile ! We dared not throw 
off our loads, and seldom dared to sit down but were kept on 
a constant stretch. At eight o'clock we stopped thirty min- 
utes for supper — then resumed our march. I never heard 
so many oaths in my life ! The men swore and raved, and 
then, too weak for that, became silent and sank in their 
tracks — utterly exhausted. Sometimes the sense of fatigue 
would come over me like a flood and I almost dropped, too. 
But my pride sustained me and I kept my pluck, marching 
on at the head of my company until midnight, when, with 
all my good resolutions and exertions I could not keep awake, 
but took short naps as we advanced. At last after sixteen 
miles, at three o'clock in the morning we bivouacked in a 
ploughed field. I simply spread my rubber blanket over 
two cornhills so that my feet rested over one and my head 
on another, and dropped down — worn out ! With a blanket 
over me I slept soundly. A horse broke loose near by and 
ran through the camp close by my head, but I never knew 

27 



Joel Dorman Steele 



of my escape until next morning when the colonel told me. 
At five o'clock we rose, cooked ham, made coffee and break- 
fasted. Soon the order came to fall in and we moved to 
the spot we now occupy. I am tired and lame but hold out 
yet, though it is passing strange. Every one has said I could 
not endure sleeping out o' nights in the rain on tlie ground, 
but I have done so, covered only with that which I carry 
on my back. Far stronger men than I am, or have ever 
thought of being, have broken down. 

" I am thinking of you on this my natal day. I cannot 
describe my thoughts, nor how I long for home once more 
— our quiet home. This life is so dreadful, so uncongenial, 
so wasting to mind and body, that I almost wish sometimes 
I had not come. But no — not that! I only did my duty, 
and you know I am learning duty's path. May God speed 
the day when war shall be over, and our separation a part 
of the dark and forgotten past." 

May 27 : " Last night I slept in the open air. I suppose 
you are becoming used to that expression. I confess I am not 
becoming used to the discomfort it implies. I awoke feel- 
ing very ill. Had I been home I should not have thought 
I could sit up during the day. However, I staggered through 
the march, and reaching our present ground dropped under 
a tree. Mr. Crane put up a shelter tent and made me a 
good cup of tea. I was kept awake last night and am tor- 
mented to-day by pain that bends me double, yet I am some- 
what better. It has rained terribly all the afternoon — drops 
as large as peas and hail like walnuts. Our tent is flooded. 
We sit in pools with our rubber blankets around us — the 
water dripping from them in streams. As I write, the rubber 
blanket over my head and lap protects the paper in part, 
though, as you see, some drops have soiled it. I would post- 
pone this letter but for two reasons : I am lonesome ; and 
we may at any time advance. You will excuse deficiencies. 
My illness, the rain and hail pouring down, thunder and 
lightning of the sharpest kind and a half dozen wet soldiers 
crowded under my tent, glad of the little shelter it affords, 
are not conducive to coherent writing." 

28 



" War's Red Techstone " 

May 28 : — " Elias A. Wood (a private in his company) 
died at the General Hospital on the 25th of this month. 
Is it not sad ? My heart has been heavy all day long. 
Yet in this terrible drama no one has time to mourn. 
Friends at home may weep and with sad hearts move about 
their duties, but no one here pauses to say more than ' That 
is too bad ! ' And on surges the wave — on rolls the wheel 1 
Such is a soldier's life and fate ! " 

In expectation of a battle a short letter to Mrs. 
Steele contained these sentences : 

" I have no time to write many words. I put my trust in 
God. Happy is the man that putteth his trust in Him. I 
may fall. Should it be my lot to wet the Southern soil with 
a soldier's blood, be assured I do not murmur. These words 
ring in my ears : 'It is sweet and glorious to die for one's 
country.' If I live, the memory of these trials will purify us 
both. In either case it is God who vvilleth of His good 
pleasure. May He smooth your path, comfort your heart, 
soothe your sorrow, and at last bring us both home in 
peace." 

The next letter followed an awful silence after the 
Battle of Seven Pines, May 31, 1862. It was written 
on a bit of brown paper ; it was crumpled, soiled and 
stained with the blood of the wounded Captain as he 
lay on the field after the conflict — weak, suffering, and 
as yet unattended. But through its incoherency, its 
agony of collapse and its longing, it still told a story of 
fidelity, patience, piety, and unalterable love for the dear 
one at home. And through it breathed an unchanged 
devotion to that cause for which he had now fought and 
bled. Truly his faith and truth "on war's red techstone 
rang true metal." 

29 



Joel Dorman Steele 



Captain SteeVs Discharge 

Head Quarters 4th Corps, 
Rowland House, Va., July 22nd, 1862. 
Special Orders, 
No. 88. 
The following named officer having tendered his resigna- 
tion is hereby honorably discharged from the Military Ser- 
vice of the U. S. 



Capt. J. D. Steele, 8rst Reg. N. Y. Vols. 

By Command of Brig. Gen. Keyes. 
(Signed) C. C. Suydam, 

Capt. and A. A. G. 
Official. 

Head Quarters Peck's Division, 
July 23d, 1862 

(Signed) W. H. MoRRiss, 

Capt. and A. A. G. 
Official. 

Head Quarters ist Brigade, 

(Signed) Geo. H. Johnson, 

Capt. and A. A. G. 

Official. 

Head Quarters 81st Reg. N. Y. Vols. 

Wm. C. Raulston, 
Maj. Com. Sist N. Y. Vols. 



30 



CHAPTER V 



AT NEWARK 



SO rapidly moved events that but little more than 
three months after he received his wound Professor 
Steele once more stood behind the teacher's desk — this 
time as Principal of the Union School, Newark, N. Y. 
Here he began in September, 1862, a four years' work 
which as indelibly marked the life of the community 
and of those under his care as had the four years spent 
in Mexico. 

Only those who witnessed the struggle for life which 
took place between the wound at Seven Pines and his 
reinstatement to the activities of a civilian, can form 
any idea of the Valley of the Shadow of Death through 
which he passed. Something of its darkness lies across 
the pages on which he wrote, shortly before his death, 
a brief review of his military experience. 

Whether or not the fever, following his return home, 
had burned out the poison of swamp and sluggish stream, 
certain it is that life took on its new lease, with a 
rallying power that spoke as well for his physical and 
mental tenacity, as had his fortitude during exhausting 
marches, killing heats and depressing chills. And though 
worn and wasted, he gathered fresh force for effective 
industry. 

A survey of what he accomplished during his stay 
in Newark, shows an assiduity and ambition that are 

31 



Joel Dorman Steele 

amazing. He not only performed the usual duties of 
the principalship with unusual proficiency, but he con- 
stantly undertook other projects conducive to the 
advancement of his work and to wider educational in- 
fluence than the mere attention to professional routine 
could give. To this he was impelled by that within 
him which woke to action whenever he saw a need he 
could supply, a question he could answer, an obscurity 
he could illuminate. 

Professor William Wells, who had been his instructor at 
Genesee College, wrote from Union College in 1894 : 

" As a student he was bright, lively, sympathetic and ubi- 
quitous. Wherever any activity was in progress he was in 
the midst of it. I now see him in my mind's eye as I often 
saw him then — smiling, laughing, encouraging — in the 
crowd ; or on the platform, appealing, advising, maintaining 
or censuring. He was never outside of anything." 

The last sentence aptly notes a trait in Dr. Steele's 
character to which he owed much of his success and to 
which every community in which he lived owed a debt 
of gratitude. Great things enlisted his heart and soul, 
small things his attention and service. The plans of 
his friends, church causes, social schemes, devices for 
furnishing his school with better equipment, political and 
patriotic problems, all sorrows and all joys of neighborly 
interest — he was outside none of them. 

" I retire to my room," he wrote in the spring of 1863, " at 
from eleven to twelve o'clock at night, after these lectures 
and school performances. I read in my room an hour or so 
— sometimes until past one, and rise at 6.30." 

The lectures referred to were a scientific series, illus- 
trated by experiments or pictures or both. They were 



At Newark 

a local feature during each winter of the lecturer's 
sojourn in Newark and were highly commended by press 
and people, widely extending the fame and popularity 
of the Newark school and its master. Before his re- 
moval from the town he began to be in considerable 
demand in other places and at institutes. His subjects 
were mainly scientific. A few of them were " The Twin 
Oceans," " Chemistry of the Candle," " Science of the 
Sunbeam," " Atmospheric Philosophy," " Electrical 
Philosophy," and the like. 

The material returns for these lectures, delivered abso- 
lutely free of personal recompense, placed in the school 
apparatus worth about two thousand dollars. The library 
also constantly grew, and of course patronage steadily 
increased, and the Newark newspaper of that time con- 
gratulates the village on the fact that " the receipts from 
the tuition of foreign scholars considerably exceeds that 
of any year since the organization of the school and is 
nearly treble that of three years ago." 

The schoolmaster, as he had done in Mexico and as 
he later did in Elmira, won to himself the confiding love 
of the pupils — a love most dear to him. During his 
first year he wrote Mrs. Steele : 

" I do believe my scholars like me better and better. This 
is what I most desire. I receive beautiful bouquets daily 
and carry them home every night. This morning I found 
a gift of strawberries, 'just trembling on the border of 
ambrosia and nectar,' carefully stowed away in my desk. 
It was labelled, ' For Mr. Steele, by one of his scholars.' 
The little girls downstairs daily waylay me, as usual. They 
now call for me and escort me to school. I can hardly stir 
without this fluttering bodyguard. I think I never felt so 
much affection among my scholars as here. It cheers and 
encourages me wonderfully." 
3 33 



Joel Dorman Steele 

The remarkable hold gained by him on the moral 
and spiritual natures of the students is not forgotten 
to this day. Years afterward a young woman said : 
" He made a different person of me. I owe all I 
am to him." That remark, happily repeated to him 
when fame had become his, filled him with tender joy 
and thankfulness. In 1873 he wrote to General Alfred 
C. Barnes, of New York, a member of the firm of 
" A. S. Barnes & Co.", with whom he had formed a 
close friendship and who was then in Europe : " I 
want to tell you that one of my old pupils has just 
taken charge of my former school in Newark. Another 
has just been elected Principal of Mexico Academy." 
By him such things were regarded as important events, 
worthy to be communicated to those whom he loved 
and trusted. 

As a teacher, he had, from the beginning, taken into 
consideration moral and spiritual foundations. By nature 
and rearing sincerely religious, his army experience, which 
brought him face to face with many momentous crises, 
had filled him with a sense of the splendor of sacrifice. 
So he returned to his profession with a purified perception 
of service and a quickened benevolence. And Newark, 
his new field, yielded the first fruits. 

Nothing could have been more unexpected than the 
spontaneous manifestation in his school of that religious 
awakening which finally interested the entire village. 
Of it he has himself written in his reminiscences, and his 
letters of this time teem with allusions to it. He evi- 
dently performed the tasks of both teacher and pastor, 
and every student under his care was personally engaged 
in the endeavor that lifted all to higher living and 
finally enlisted every denomination. 

34 



At Newark 

"We had a heavenly prayer-meeting," he writes. "Glori- 
ous is the God who giveth such rich fulfilment of promise. 
These young people's meetings are full of blessings." 

"They have coaxed me into the idea of leading their Sun- 
day School, but I do not think I am fitted for it or will give 
satisfaction." 

The Sunday School mentioned was a Mission School 
at Hydeville, Wayne Co., N. Y., and it became a real 
success. He associated with himself in the work one 
of his students, a young man who took charge of a Bible 
class and led the singing. Of the latter. Professor Steele 
made much. He later wrote in letters of differing dates 
as follows : 

" The singing we find very poor, so much so that the min- 
isters make no attempt to have the hymns sung, but read 
them through as they do a chapter in the Bible, and then 
preach. But I insist that those who cannot sing shall at 
least read the hymn aloud, and this keeps them at work. 
The school is now getting lively and interesting, and I hope 
I shall do some good by my undertaking." 

" Had a very fine attendance at Sunday School. The 
singing is becoming excellent." 

" I tell you, Etta, the place for a man is at his post, at his 
work, and then he is free, useful, and at home anywhere 
in God's great universe " 

The special strength of the young schoolmaster's 
efforts in Christian work was his trustful love of God and 
his faithful love of man. His personal care of individual 
cases was incessant. 

" Will A — ," he writes, " leaves on Monday for Brock- 
port. He goes as clerk in a dry-goods store. I have had a 
long talk with him and shall feel anxious for him away from 
the ' helps ' he now enjoys." 

35 



Joel Dorman Steele 

Again he speaks of a young lady for whom he has 
fears, and of another for whom he has hopes, showing 
plainly his care for and interest in all. No letter written 
by him during Mrs. Steele's absence in 1864, but refers 
to some special case and his own spiritual experience. 

The constancy and success of his labors could not but 
attract the attention of those of his denomination who 
were in authority. And on May 24, 1864, he wrote : 

" At the last Quarterly Conference I was appointed ex- 
horter in the Methodist Episcopal Church ! What think 
you of that ? They had not broached the subject to me and 
I was for a time dumbfounded. But of course I cannot 
refuse. It may be the open door." 

It was thus that Professor Steele began to do minis- 
terial work and was at last ordained a preacher, an office 
in which his service was so effective as to warrant the 
conviction expressed by many of his hearers, that he 
might have attained ministerial distinction. But he, 
himself, never felt that he was called to the ministry 
in an ecclesiastical sense. He was, in fact, a teacher 
pure and simple. To him the church was a school for 
the learner of divine things and in the pulpit as else- 
where, " he opened his mouth and taught them." 

Professor Steele's work at Newark was by no means 
confined to his lectures, his church activities and his 
school. He was a prominent figure at Teachers' Asso- 
ciations and was always earnest in promoting the enlist- 
ment of Union Volunteers. Indeed more than once he 
seriously thought of returning to the field in spite of his 
depleted strength. Of this possibility he thus writes : 

" News came in town to-day that our Militia company is 
to be held and perhaps called into service. I hope it is true. 



At Newark 

Could I have my way I would use my vacation by joining 
my own brave boys at the front and trying once more to 
lead them on." 

Aug. 7, 1S64 : " It is proposed to have a company raised 
in this town, and a strong pressure has been put upon me to 
accept the captaincy. Mr. B. would take my place in school 
for a time. I have told those interested that if it was 
thought I could do more good by raising a company and 
taking the field than by teaching, I would serve the town 
and our common country in this way. I hope you will not 
think I have erred in saying this. Of course I shall see and 
consult you before I decide definitely. But I feel that my 
position is the only right, manly, and patriotic one, and my 
conscience approves it." 

Fortunately, a strong opposition from the patrons of his 
school, and the persuasions of friends, who believed that 
a renewal of military hardships would be fatal, preserved 
him to the educational work that was to lead him for- 
ward to vast accomplishment. 

In March 1866, Professor Steele, worn by incessant 
exertions for church, school and town interests, began 
to feel so seriously the symptoms of debility, that he 
feared he might be obliged to discontinue work before 
the end of the school year. He was indeed recovering 
slowly from a severe illness when he was offered the 
Principalship of Elmira Free Academy. This offer, 
totally unexpected, was received with his usual careful 
deliberation, and his conclusion to accept it was reached 
only after such scrupulous reflection as had marked his 
previous changes. 

It was his habit to consider thoughtfully and prayer- 
fully, every proposal involving new lines of labor, confi- 
dent that the hand of God would lead and uphold him, 
if he were but trustful in decision and trusty in action. 

37 



Joel Dorman Steele 

This characteristic made possible the satisfying serenity 
which was his when circumstances and judgment had 
committed him to a locaUty or a labor. His faith be- 
came exaltation in the time of perplexities, and tran- 
quillity in everyday adjustment of temporal things. When 
he had, after long hesitation, decided to buy the house 
which was his first Elmira property, the business was 
concluded a few hours before a letter was received offer- 
ing him the Principalship of the State Normal School at 
Fredonia, N. Y., with a considerable advance of salary. 
He wrote Mrs. Steele : 

" I made the payment on the house at one o'clock. In 
that evening's mail I received the inclosed letter. Of course 
it comes too late, but I am not in the least unsettled by it. 
The rather it fixes my conviction that I am destined to re- 
main here, and I cannot but consider the whole train of cir- 
cumstances providential. Else why should everything 
combine to settle me here ? It would now require an effort 
for me to leave. I have bought the house, and furniture, 
and the garden is made. The offer of five hundred dollars 
more a year is no inducement to break up. Wednesday 
morning it might have been ; Friday night it was not." 

This Christian philosophy became sublime in the 
ordeals of existence. In a sermon of loving sorrow and 
sympathy, at a memorial service in the autumn of 1872, 
for the Rev. Charles Z. Case, a beloved pastor of the 
First Methodist Episcopal Church of Elmira, he spoke 
thus : 

" O, my brethren, this is a strange world in which we live 
— so full of mystery, of doubt, of peril, of perplexity, of 
strange Providences. We cannot understand them all, but 

we can keep our faith We know not now, but we 

shall know hereafter." 

-^8 



At Newark 

" In the Baptistery of the Cathedral at Pisa is a wonderful 
dome. Every sound made in the building, the slamming of 
seats, the trampling of feet, all the murmur and bustle of the 
crowd is caught up by this great vault, softened, harmonized, 
blended, and echoed back in music. So it seems to me that 
over life hangs the great dome of God's providence. Every 
weak effort we make, our mistakes even, all the jar and 
bustle, all our doubts and perplexities, shall be caught up by 
it, and, softened, harmonized, and blended, shall come back 
to us at last in the sweet music of Heaven." 

Nearly ten years later he expressed in a letter to 
General Barnes that steadfast reliance on God which 
could trust Him though He slay : 

Dec. 2S, 1881 : " One of my college classmates fell dead 
last month in the vigor of his manhood. Such tidings not 
only awaken my sympathy, but set me wondering when 
my turn will come for the lightning stroke to fall. Well, 
the only way is to do our work honestly and carefully, and 
let God take care of us all. We cattU go until our work is 
done.'''' 

A man with such a faith found it possible, on de- 
mand, to forget his weariness and to front new and try- 
ing conditions of schoolroom work. In less than two 
months from the day on which he first heard the propo- 
sition of the Elmira committee, he had begun his six 
years of High School administration in Elmira. Here 
he soon won the attention of educators everywhere, and 
was led out into that large and pioneer career of school- 
book authorship which shook the dry bones of lifeless 
instruction and imparted a strong and enduring vitality. 

Much correspondence and printed matter show how 
deeply the removal touched both himself and those 
from whom he parted. A Newark editorial spoke of 

39 



Joel Dorman Steele 

the distinct advance in general intelligence which had 
grown out of the enterprises of the school. It noted the 
higher standard of classification and scholarship, and 
especially the fact that, in direct opposition to the 
determination of the State not to place such depart- 
ments in Union Schools, it had established in Newark a 
class in the science of Common School teaching. This 
class had greatly raised the grade of instruction in sur- 
rounding districts. 
One editorial said : 

" Nothing tends to correct the morals and add to the im- 
portance of a village more than a good school. We venture 
to say there is not a village on the line of the canal, between 
Albany and Buffalo, where the youth are so well-behaved as 
here. This should be largely attributed to our school." 

Every interest in the community brought its word of 
regret to the departing principal. An earnest and affec- 
tionate letter from the Newark pastors, representing 
other denominations than his own, was especially prized 
by Dr. Steele and always carefully preserved. "You 
may find," it said, "a. wider and more acceptable field 
elsewhere, but you will nowhere find more attached and 
sympathetic friends." 

The genuine love and esteem in the hearts of high 
and humble, which lamented separation and put earnest 
good-will into words, followed the young professor when 
he passed from the limits of the little town, and counted 
him one of their own through many changing years. 
For in their midst he had already clearly divined the 
true import of his vocation. 



40 



CHAPTER VI 

ELMIRA FREE ACADEMY 

THE reasons why Elmira Free Academy had become 
the despair of its friends, are those of a past local 
interest and not necessary to these pages. Patronized 
by rich and poor alike, it contained material for the best 
scholarship and development. But it had become, by 
the mismanagement of those in authority and by the 
consequent trespasses of those in attendance, a place 
where the high spirits, thoughtless mischief-making, and 
deliberate rebellion of ungoverned young people found 
ample vent and were a constant cause of confusion. 

Elmira was in 1866 a young city, not yet accustomed 
to its civic dignity, and but lately the centre of civil war 
excitements and discomposures. Its social and educa- 
tional conditions were those of a town neither urban nor 
rural. Its population was of excellent general intelli- 
gence, ambitious, increasingly prosperous and public- 
spirited, and it numbered among its residents some 
already famed as schoolmen, theologians, and politi- 
cians. But it had not yet many who were united as the 
exponents of broad doctrines, nor had there yet been 
formed the large and small associations, now so common, 
wherein are exchanged the thoughts that enter into the 
higher life of communities. Indeed the consideration 
of sociological and pedagogical problems had not, as yet, 
spread to any great extent beyond literary and university 
centres. 

41 



Joel Dorman Steele 

Whoever then stood in the chapel of Elmira Free 
Academy to advocate or introduce ideas of disciphne 
strange both to student and citizen, must brave misap- 
prehension, adverse criticism, and the lamentations of 
such as mourn for those " that break through old hori- 
zons and leave the known paths wherein their fathers 
walked, to bring back new truths and tokens of a better 
land." 

The marvel wrought by the slender, gentle young man 
of thirty, who undertook his work under these conditions, 
must ever remain notable in the local and State history 
of schools. The influence of his theory and practice of 
self-government, as applied to the schoolroom, is still 
felt and acknowledged both by members of the profes- 
sion and those that were his pupils. 

One of the latter, who became a member of the 
academy faculty and did a high grade of work until her 
marriage to a St. Louis physician, after Dr. Steele's death 
wrote to Mrs. Steele : 

" When I was a schoolgirl we were almost hero-worship- 
pers of your husband. Now that I am a mature woman 
with a somewhat wider observation of schools than many 
have, and with a varied school experience of my own, I am 
better fitted for correct judgment of Professor Steele's abihty 
as a teacher. Looking through the clearer eyes of these 
less impassioned years I can say with unexaggerated empha- 
sis, that among all the able and brilliant educators I have 
ever known, your husband led the whole line in his marvel- 
lous rousing of esprit de corps among his pupils. His ideals 
and his wishes were to his enthusiastic pupils like those of 
the Little Corporal of France to French warriors. . . . My 
own class of 1870 is scattered from Japan to Germany, and 
through that far-extended arc the tribute of gratitude to him 
who has gone higher has uninterrupted course." 

42 



Elmira Free Academy 

The editor of this book, at some pains, has gathered 
information as to the later years of this class, and finds 
that each, with scarcely an exception, has been an honor 
to all, from Clement D. Bainbridge, the particularly 
bright salutatorian, who became an actor of professional 
and personal good repute, to the brilliant valedictorian, 
Jacob Sloat Fassett, who studied law, was admitted to 
the bar, served his State as Senator, was by President 
Harrison appointed Collector of the Port of New York 
City, and made a famous fight for the Governorship. 
Others have attained more than ordinary distinction, 
while the business men, wives, and mothers who survive 
are all held in highest respect. The three or four who 
have died have left precious memories. It would seem 
that the fair and fortunate lives of this class are like a 
beautiful answer to the last chapel prayer made for them 
by their devoted teacher, in which he pleaded : " Heav- 
enly Father, keep their eyes from tears, their feet from 
straying, and their souls from death." 

Further examinations of lists of academy students 
who were enrolled during Professor Steele's principal- 
ship give a remarkable showing of unblemished history. 
And the affectionate acknowledgments of those who 
speak or write of their old teacher are inspiring. One 
of the most gifted, who has made herself felt in litera- 
ture and a learned profession, has written : 

" My first and best memory of Professor Steele, as to the 
remarkable quality of his teaching, was his method of ap- 
proach to a difficult subject. I remained a student, in this 
country and abroad, for seven years after I left the Academy, 
and though I heard many a brilliant professor lecture on 
various subjects, scientific and literary, I never took my note- 
book without blessing the man who taught me how to make 



Joel Dorman Steele 

a place in my own mind for what I heard, how to unite 
the new with the old so as to make one body of thought. 

" Knowledge piecemeal was one of his abhorrences. 
Woe to the student who adopted a forlorn phrase from 
nowhere, however wise, if it did not supplement the thought 
of yesterday. In any given subject, the day's recitation 
must neatly join that of the day before or one's work was a 
failure. 

" But there was no severe, offensive reproof. The happy 
jest with which he would salute a flagrant error, would fix 
the correction forever in the mind and doubly endear the 
teacher." 

The impression made on the spiritual natures of the 
young is well expressed by the following extracts from 
letters written after his death. Says one : 

" The daily Academy exercises began with Scripture 
reading. The fourteenth chapter of St. John was one of his 
favorites. In the prayer following his impressive reading he 
would often address the Deity as 'Our divine Master and 
Teacher' and ask Him to 'Take in Thy great, loving hand 
all our hands, and guide us this day.' " 

Writes a physician of Buffalo, N. Y. : 

" Above all, the conduct of morning worship holds place 
in my remembrance. The best I can say of those prayers 
is that they could and did inspire a child — a busy, breathing, 
happy school-child — to rejoice in the God of all wisdom 
and knowledge. And after that joy it was not strange that 
the child should know the beauty of honor and realize that 
other forms of learning, of whatever department, could never 
afterward seem separate from religion." 

" I became his pupil," said another, " when about fourteen 
years of age. The school had been very turbulent for 
months before he came, but his gracious sympathy and 
presence at once won the respect and co-operation of the 
scholars. He gave them perfect freedom, but put them on 

44 



Elmira Free Academy 

their honor not to take undue advantage of the liberty. He 
made them feel from the beginning that he was their friend. 
He had a keen sense of justice, but was very willing to over- 
look a fault. I never saw him angry or severe. 

" Being one of the head pupils I had the privilege of 
studying in his private office. This gave me better oppor- 
tunities for studying his character, and I always felt he was 
an earnest Christian. I can see him now, as he stood at 
his desk, reading the one hundred and third Psalm — one 
of his favorite selections." 

Of his theory and practice of discipline, countless 
commendations have been spoken and written. And it 
is easy to see that nothing could have been more 
practical. 

" The self-government of his school," testifies one who 
had experienced its force, " had no pretence about it. It was 
a real republic of honor. In all true sense of government 
we were no more school children than college men are. In 
fact when I went to college I found to my dismay that I had 
taken a long step backward in methods of school discipline. 
It was only when I found myself in a State University, years 
afterward, that I returned to the freedom and self-respect in 
matters of school-life that Professor Steele created by reason 
of his own belief in nascent man and woman in every boy 
and girl in his School. His question, when a misdemeanor 
took place, was not : ' How do I, your teacher, intend to pun- 
ish you ? ' but, ' What effect will your act have on the stand- 
ing of your class, and on the progress of the scholars below 
you in the school ? ' This point of view always had a good 
effect." 

" Once when the literary society had a sleigh ride down 
the river, to the home of one of its members," writes Miss 

, " some one closed the door of the room in which 

Professor Steele was, so that we might dance in the next 
room. As soon as he was aware of it he walked indignantly 
to the door, opened it, and said : ' I am willing you should 

45 



Joel Dorman Steele 



amuse yourselves by dancing, but not as if it must be under- 
hand work, behind closed doors.' " 

Another tribute mentions the injunctions of Dr. Steele 
in his endeavors to aid his pupils in the education of 
their consciences, and tells how he liked to quote the 
words of Washington : " Labor to keep alive in your 
breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience." 

The phenomenal progress of the academy in all par- 
ticulars of discipline and scholarship, won, in natural 
order, the Board of Education, the patrons, the citizens 
generally, and the city press. His system of manage- 
ment was declared correct and profitable. The follow- 
ing are a few words from a city editorial : 

" In less than a year the Academy has entered upon a new 
era of progress and the principal has won golden opinions. 
He is professionally and personally popular — the right man 
in the right place." 

One paragraph from a letter written to Mrs. Steele in 
January, 1867, when she was visiting at his father's 
home, contains the only privately written words he has 
left expressing his personal satisfaction : 

" Tell Father that my plan of government by the con- 
science is waxing better than at first. I pay almost no at- 
tention to my schoolroom. I could leave it without any 
difficulty from morning till night — without any disorder or 
annoying conditions. I never felt so delighted with the 
method. It is the philosopher's stone to me. It saves me 
half my work and accomplishes better results. It governs 
where I cannot be. It creates a moral sentiment. It corrects 
where I am ignorant of any wrong." 

There is preserved among Dr. Steele's effects a worn, 
black-bound volume of many pages, on the fly-leaf of 

46 



r"N 



•i: 




JOEL DORMAX STEELE 

From Marble Bust by Cofikfy 



Elmira Free Academy 

which is written by his youthful hand the inscription, 
'< Essays, Orations, and addresses by J. Dorman Steele, 
New York." Among them is his first college chapel 
piece, read April, 1858, when he was not quite twenty- 
two. It is in part here quoted as a remarkable fore- 
runner of the principles of his later life. It is entitled, 
"Why is Man a Slave?" 

" The idea that man is born free," it says, " may be true, 
but he does not grow up thus. This is the result of his 
education. The child is helpless ; he is taught to rely upon 
superior strength. The child is ignorant; he is taught to 
listen reverently to the teachings of wisdom. If he should 
manifest the spirit which should ever characterize true, 
manly dignity, it must be repressed. If he seek to use the 
birthright of ' liberty,' parental hands inflict punishment. 
He is taught to believe that his noblest acts are acts of 
obedience. . . . 

" But because a child ought to obey, does it follow that 
he has no intellect to be consulted, no judgment that may 
dictate ? . . . Is the parent to mould the child after his 
own image in thought, look, and act, or is it not rather his 
duty to develop that mind which he already has — teach 
him that his own intellect is to be his reliance — his own 
opinions his guide — his own hands are to carve his destiny? 
That is a true education which teaches the child to rely 
upon itself; a false, which teaches a reliance on others. 

" Many parents seem to have an idea that they can shape 
the habits, thoughts, and aspirations of a child as they would 
whittle out an arrow and shoot it straight down the pathway 
of virtue and honor. . , . When they realize that there 
must exist and be practised in early life, all those virtues 
that are to adorn manhood's prime — then may we hope for 
a race of free, independent minds. 

" To the degrading system of education commonly pur- 
sued, should be ascribed the cringing servility of the mass 
of men at the present time. A child taught to be the pas- 

47 



Joel Dorman Steele 



sive executor of another's will, of necessity makes a fawn- 
ing sycophant, a pliant tool of party intrigue, a limber 
sapling swaying in the breeze of public sentiment. In fact, 
he only carries into practical life the teachings of his boy- 
hood when he yields his conscience, his will, his judgment, 
his manhood, to the parental hand of his political guardian. 
His history is the history of indecision. He goes through 
life groaning under burdens grievous to be borne. He 
becomes a bondsman sold to the service of public opinion." 

The intrinsic worth of such thoughts and conclusions, 
and their precocity in a mere youth, show how his 
modesty underrated the natural powers of his mind, 
when in April, 1886, he stated in his autobiographical 
sketch : 

" At Lima ... I found myself brought into competition 
with young men of greater ability. . . . However, I had 
one gift, that of perseverance. ... It was a great solace 
to me to recall how, in the fable, the tortoise won the race 
with the hare." 

In good truth that was a rare tortoise who could 
make such observations as it passed along, and could 
arrive so soon at foundation truths, which often are 
only reached far on in the competitions of life's journey. 

Dr. Steele's innovation in school government was, of 
course, bound to attract attention beyond the borders 
of that section affected by it. Critics and inquirers 
began to visit the school. Outside papers commented 
on the new idea and its workings, and its originator 
was called upon to explain his system. He re- 
sponded at institutes, State associations, convocations, 
and through educational journals. Finally he put his 
fullest thought into two valuable lectures, that became 
immediately popular, always remaining in high favor. 

48 



Elmira Free Academy 

These were " School Government, A Plain Talk to 
Teachers," and " The Teacher's Aim." On the title- 
page of the former, not long before his death he 
wrote : " This lecture I stand by as my best thought 
and experience." 

These lectures are here introduced ; their vigorous 
English, unaffected construction, single purpose and 
sincere words of rebuke and encouragement, are an 
eloquent elucidation of that which made " E. F. A." — 
as Elmira Free Academy was and is locally known — a 
name to conjure with. 



49 



CHAPTER VII 
SCHOOL GOVERNMENT! 

BY JOEL DORMAN STEELE 

ORDER is a prime necessity of school. Noise 
and bustle confuse the studious and give rogues 
an opportunity to ply their trade. Lack of firmness on 
the part of a teacher forfeits the confidence of the 
pupil. Scholars respect nerve and force. They know 
that certain offences merit punishment, and if the oc- 
casion be allowed to drift by, and no authority be 
shown, no discipline inflicted, in their souls they say 
the teacher has done wrong. 

If the offender can beg off by a kiss or a coax, he may 
be very thankful to escape, but afterward he despises 
the teacher for his lack of energy. In the long run, that 
teacher is best sustained who errs, if at all, on the side 
of strict discipline. Nothing should ever be done with- 
out silence. When the schoolroom is noisy, everything 
should come to a stand until quiet is restored. 

Just here, however, is a vital error. Order is a 
means, not an end. Order is good, but it is only a 
negative virtue. We want positive ones. When a new 
pupil comes to school he should not be told to keep 
still, but to go to work. When the attention is all ab- 
sorbed there is no chance for disorder. 

In connection with this lies a crumb of comfort. 

Activity is the normal condition of childhood. Young 

muscles and young brains will be in motion. They 

1 Written 1S71. Rewritten 1S76. 

50 



School Government 

should be. That is the way they grow. The restless- 
ness, the proneness of childhood to mischief, is only the 
natural impulse to that action which is essential to all 
health and vigor. Without it the child would never 
mature into the man. The teacher should rejoice, not 
mourn, over this propensity. A listless, inactive, inat- 
tentive, pensive, stupid child presents no possibility of 
training or development. Give me a boy or a girl, full 
of fun and animation, bent on mischief and roguery, and 
there is a chance to do something. There is a power, 
a force, back of it all, and I have only to turn it into the 
right channel and I shall have a glorious scholar by and 
by — a glorious man or woman, with a brain like a 
steam engine that is bound to run through — and I 
have the satisfaction of having put it on the track. 

As I said a moment ago, order is a necessity for 
good work. Many pupils cannot study amid confusion, 
and, moreover, noise gives a chance for rogues to ply 
their tricks undetected. Like all good things, how- 
ever, order may be overdiOViQ as well as undergone.. A 
silence that oppresses, a dead silence — the breaking of 
which by the accidental dropping of a pencil is ac- 
counted a heinous crime — is not healthy. It is para- 
lyzing, benumbing. I have known pupils in such schools 
whose nerves were constantly strained lest they might 
by chance disturb the iron grasp of law, and who told 
me that they actually devoted more mental force to 
keeping still than to learning their lessons. I have 
heard teachers say : " In my room I ajn the Autocrat 
of the RussiasT So, indeed, some principals are ab- 
solute despots. They act as if they were amenable to 
no law of God or of man. They are the incarnation of 
law and order. Every rule is merely a manifestation 

51 



Joel Dorman Steele 

of their will. Every offence is looked upon as a per- 
sonal indignity. The highest crime, and the one that 
brings down the direst punishment, is disobedience to 
the teacher, not to law ! 

You remember the story told of that celebrated 
English master, who, when the King paid him a visit, 
followed him about the schoolroom with covered head. 
On reaching the entry, however, he doffed his hat, 
begged the King's pardon, assuring him that it would 
ruin his government if the children supposed for an 
instant that there was a higher authority than his any- 
where in the kingdom. Now it seems to me that a 
control of this kind is the easiest thing in the world to 
establish and maintain. The teacher needs only a 
strong will. There is very little weighing of motives. 
His government is a concretion, not an abstraction. A 
set of rules is laid down which covers all ordinary cases 
— whispering, leaving seats, talking, writing, or passing 
notes, on the negative side, /. e., the varied forms of 
communication are forbidden ; and on the positive side, 
silence and study are enjoined. Then the master mounts 
his throne and watches for offenders. A reign of terror 
is established. War is tacitly declared. The pupil looks 
upon the teacher as his natural, born enemy — at any 
rate as one who loves to circumscribe his liberty, and 
who seeks to circumvent him in his highest earthly 
delight. Hence, he is constantly on the watch to do 
what is forbidden, while the teacher's wits are equally 
taxed to detect and punish these sins. 

How often does a company of boys and girls as- 
semble in a room and deliberately set about devising 
a plan to " get around " the teacher. In defence, 
the Faculty combines to outgeneral the scholars. It is 

52 



School Government 

merely a trick of cunning on both sides. Woe to the 
unlucky wight caught transgressing ! I myself have seen, 
in this state of New York, a one-half inch black walnut 
rule broken into halves, and these in turn into smaller 
pieces, upon the hand of a boy who dared to whisper. 
Even where corporal punishment is rarely administered, 
the heavy voice of the master easily subdues all oppo- 
sition. There are enough penalties which a fertile im- 
agination can conceive, wherewith to overpower all but 
the most refractory. The teacher may not intend it and 
may not himself be aware of it, but the real power 
which governs his school xs/ear f 

Now fear is the lowest motive to which we can ap- 
peal. Just in the degree to which it becomes operative 
on the mind of a child does it call out the basest type 
of character. It moulds most those who are cowardly 
and craven-hearted. The high-spirited, noble, generous, 
revolt at such submission and throw off even the whole- 
some restraints of school, and thus lose all the benefits 
of discipline. Every effort is made to shield the offender. 
Any pupil punished is looked upon as a martyr. The 
sympathy of the school is with the transgressor and not 
the teacher. Expulsion, since it indicates spirit and 
spunk, is privately considered by the boys about as 
honorable as graduation. Indeed, I know of a school 
where the ideal hero, among the boys, is one who can 
take a ferruling without crying. 

I have said that such a mode of punishment is the 
easiest for a teacher. I am quite inclined to say it is, 
also, for the scholar. He has no wear and tear of con- 
science. He rarely or never needs to stop and consider 
whether an act be right or wrong. The teacher is con- 
science for the whole school. He commands certain 

53 



Joel Dorman Steele 

things and forbids certain others. Circumstances there 
alter no cases. A scholar never need be in doubt what 
to do. He simply drops into the net and lets the strong 
will of the teacher push him ahead. The teacher's 
course is clear. The scholar's is as plainly marked. 
Neither kind of government which I have described 
requires much brain anywhere. A ready-made clothing 
store never needs a high-priced tailor. It is only when 
you have to fit the form that cutting and shaping come 
in play and skill is needed. 

This mode of governing a school seems to me to fail, 
just because it is thus general and applies to all a cast- 
iron principle. I candidly admit that I cannot enforce 
a series of particular rules. (Of course I do not mean 
such ones as Boards of Education adopt, against using 
tobacco, gambling, and for the protection of their prop- 
erty.) I cannot keep these set rules myself. They are 
in my way more than iu that of the pupils. Exceptions 
arise at once ; and a rule, like a mirror, once broken, 
is useless. 

With very young children there must be special in- 
junctions and prohibitions, and with some more than 
others — growing out of the diversities of character, 
home government, disposition, and other causes. But 
with older children — say those from ten to fifteen, I 
find arbitrary rules unwieldy, and, with those of older 
years, absolutely unmanageable. I must weigh the 
motives of an act. I cannot be conscience for a hun- 
dred boys and girls. It is more than I can do to be 
conscience for myself. I cannot enter into the pene- 
tralia of their hearts and decide questions of right and 
wrong. God has given to each a conscience as He has 
to me. It is my right and duty to compel its use. It 

54 



School Government 

may be that He reveals His will as clearly to their minds 
as to mine. Perhaps I do not magnify my calling suffi- 
ciently, but I do think that sometimes the truth comes 
to man through pupil as well as through teacher. 

I read in the Good Book that God writes his law on 
the tender hearts of babes and sucklings, and my mouth 
is stopped and my heart is softened thereby. When, 
therefore, a child commits a wrong, I desire to hold him 
responsible, not to a rule of school, as if that were re- 
vealed on Mount Sinai, but to his own conscience. 
I wish, untrammelled by precedents, pledges, or threats, 
to examine each by itself, with all its surroundings, in- 
cluding the temperament and home-training of the child 
— and then to do what is best. We are told, " Punish- 
ment is admonitory in its character." This theory may 
do when we are talking about childhood in general, and 
nobody's child in particular. But I should not like to 
have a teacher flog my boy, to keep some one else's boy 
from doing wrong. 

I never can tell beforehand what I may wish to do, 
or what a pupil should do, in an emergency. W^hen Dr. 
Hitchcock, who was settled in Sandwich, made his first 
exchange with the Plymouth minister, he must needs 
pass through the Plymouth woods, a nine-miles wilder- 
ness, where travellers almost always got lost and fre- 
quently came out at the point where they started. The 
doctor, on entering this dreaded labyrinth, asked an old 
woman whom he met, to give him some directions that 
he might fetch up at Plymouth and not at Sandwich. 
"Certainly," said she, "you keep right on till you get 
to a place where the road branches off in almost every 
direction. Then you stop and think, and think, and 
think ! ! And then take the road which seems most 

55 



Joel Dorman Steele 

likely to bring you out right." The Doctor did so and 
emerged from the woods, at Plymouth, as he wished. 

I think there is a great deal of good common sense 
in the old woman's advice. A teacher must go ahead, 
and when the emergency arises, just stop and think, and 
think, and think, and then take the course which seems 
best. 

The point I wish to make from all this discussion is 
not that flogging is never essential — not that special 
rules are cumbersome — not that fear should never be 
appealed to not that stern discipline is not needed in 
school, but this, that there should be no ivholesale mode 
of government. No one plan will answer for all schools, 
nor for all scholars, nor indeed for all teachers. No one 
can ride another's hobby and win the race. He will be 
lucky if he is not thrown entirely. Some years ago a 
young teacher at an Institute heard a famous educa- 
tionist commend the idea of discarding reading books 
and using in their place the daily newspaper. The 
pedagogic seed sprouted in the brain of our youthful 
Pestalozzi. He was a Republican and he naturally 
turned to his party organ. So the next day the class 
expounded the gospel according to Greeley. Unfor- 
tunately for the experiment, the district was Democratic 
— almost to a man. Need I say that ere long, that 
eager aspirant after educational honors might have been 
seen sorrowfully wending his way to the railroad station, 
his satchel in one hand, a bundle of "Tribunes " in the 
other? 

A plan which works to-day may fail to-morrow. 
What hits one class may go wide of the next. The true 
teacher is a man of expedients, of keen intuition, of 
quick application, and of wise judgment. When I need 

56 



School Government 

his help I do not care half so much about the school 
of the physician as I do about his skill. I understand, 
likewise, that more depends on the skill of the teacher 
than on the excellency of any plan. So, I care more 
for a teacher's spirit than his mode of government. 

I think every method of government has its place. 
With most young children there are times when corporal 
punishment, for example, is absolutely needed. When 
parents do their duty this time will, generally, be passed 
before the teacher's work begins. No well-home- 

TR.\INED BOY NEEDS FLOGGING IN SCHOOL ! But We mUSt 

supplement the deficiencies of many homes. The boy or 
girl may come to our care with no foundation upon 
which we can build. Other expedients fail. At last we 
stand face to face with this — the final resort. I deem it 
one of the supreme moments of a teacher's life. Flog- 
ging may soften ; it may harden. Difficult, indeed, is it 
to decide. If a teacher ever needs to feel his responsi- 
bility, ever needs to pray for Divine guidance, it is then, 
when he approaches the ultima Thule of his methods of 
reform. No one can ever occupy the position he does ; 
he never can do it himself again. The second punish- 
ment, like the second narcotic, never has the effect of 
the first. The spirit, the mode — all go to decide the 
destiny of an immortal soul. 

I have now hacked down the brush from every side 
that I might come squarely up before this thought — 
Each scholar has a soul, with its individual reason, will, 
conscience, responsibility, and destiny. We should 
seek to develop that soul according to the peculiarities 
which God has stamped upon it, not according to any 
whims or notions we have formed or any nice plans 
we have adopted. Souls were made before schools, and 

57 



Joel Dorman Steele 

we must adapt ourselves and our systems to them. In 
dealing with each we must weigh, and balance, and 
pray, and think, and strive to develop that soul accord- 
ing to the laws of its growth. There is a boy who is 
soon to go forth into life, to take up its heavy burdens, 
to meet its terrible temptations, perchance to shape 
the destinies of church and state. I am projecting his 
soul out upon a path that will Hft him high as Heaven, 
or sink him deep as Hell. He is to be planted in some 
household where he is to grow up, thrusting his roots 
down deep, spreading his branches out wide, sheltering, 
supporting, beautifying. With this outlook, the petty 
questions of parsing sentences, and solving problems, 
shrink into insignificance ! In the grand thought of 
that boy's future, I catch the inspiration of the nobler 
motive, the higher aim, and the grander truth. True, 
he is only a poor printer's boy, but he may become a 
Franklin and bring down lightning from the clouds. 
He is only a rough sailor lad, but he may become 
a Columbus, and discover a new world. He is only a 
little apple-peddler, but he may accumulate a fortune 
and become a John Jacob Astor. He is a wretched 
speaker, and last week broke down, flat, in his declama- 
tion, but he may become a Daniel Webster and shape 
the policy of the nation. How grand it would be if I 
could so mould and round out that boy's character as 
to make it uniform and consistent ; if, by my exertions, 
the future Franklin should be a Christian philosopher, 
seeing God in the flashing lightning and hearing Him 
in the rolling thunder ; if the future Columbus should 
be mild and amiable, knowing that it is more glorious to 
explore and subdue the world of passion within than 
to discover and conquer a continent ; if the future 

5S 



School Government 

Webster should be frugal and temperate, feeling that 
he who restrams and controls his own appetites is a 
wiser man than he who guides the counsels of a nation ; 
if the future John Jacob Astor should be a benevolent, 
whole-souled man, making the arid desert of selfishness 
about him to bud and blossom like the rose beneath 
the stream of his loving benefactions. 

Some one said to Franklin : " What is the good of 
your discoveries? You say electricity and lightning are 
identical — but what of that? " 

" What good is there in a boy," replied the philoso- 
pher, " but that he may become a man? " 

Here are the high thought and purpose ; here the 
grand motive and inspiration of the teacher. He realizes 
that manhood and womanhood are just before, waiting 
to crown the lives of his pupils. I said, just now, that 
this thought shrivels up the petty questions of parsing 
and ciphering. Let me say it somehow gives to them 
a new and startling significance. The master looks at 
his pupils and realizes that what are now only acorns in 
the young brain will become oaks in the old heads — that 
the passions and motives which people call childishness 
will not be outgrown but only overgro7un, and so all that 
he wants them to become hereafter, they must be now. 
Are his children to be noble, generous, diligent, truthful 
me?i and women, then they must be noble, generous, 
diligent, truthful boys and gir/s. 

Some years ago I was appointed to conduct an exami- 
nation of teachers in a large city. Having distributed 
the printed lists of questions, I sat at my desk quietly 
watching the progress of events. Tell it not in Gath, 
nor mention it in Askalon. Those teachers practised all 
the petty tricks of children, which they had learned in 

59 



Joel Dorman Steele 

their earlier days and whicli tliey had so often rebuked 
in school. With amazement I saw men and women 
making use of all the mean subterfuges and transparent 
pretences so familiar to every teacher. In a word I saw 
teachers doing that which they had often pronounced, 
in the schoolroom, despicable, unmanly, and treacherous. 
Yet they never blushed, nor winced. I said nothing ; 
I only bitterly wondered how they would conduct the 
next examination in their own classes. With what face 
could they reprove in others that which they did 
themselves ? 

School life should be like real life. All the motives 
and sentiments which actuate society should be used 
to regulate school. Whatever is mean and low in one 
should be stamped as mean and low in the other. A 
model society should be established. The teacher should 
consider his pupils to be ladies and gentlemen in thought 
and feeling, if not in stature. At a certain school not 
long since I noticed a girl asking a teacher a civil ques- 
tion. She received the gruff reply : " Why do you 
bother me with such questions? Go to the dictionary." 
If that girl's mother had made the query the teacher's 
manner would have been quite different, and with all 
suavity she would have proceeded to explain the point. 

Teachers should defer to the reasonable wishes of 
pupils, address them courteously, grant them favors 
whenever possible, and never, without good cause, 
doubt their honor. Briefly, the teacher should treat 
his pupils as he does ladies and gentlemen in society. 
In turn, he should expect from them the same consider- 
ation. " Like begets like." Such a teacher will rear 
such scholars. 

Public sentiment should be created and cultivated. 
60 



School Government 

No measure should be adopted which the good sense 
of the scholars does not indorse. No law can be en- 
forced unless the general sentiment is in its favor. No 
false feeling of dignity should, therefore, lead a teacher 
to carry out any measure which the school disapproves. 
Public opinion should be so strong and so right, that 
if an idle pupil comes into the school, he will find the 
pressure irresistible, and will either be overcome at once 
and melt down into the mass, or be squeezed out and 
forced to leave in disgust. The reason of every measure 
should be explained. The vicious and indolent will then 
find no encouragement. All the sympathy will be on 
the side of the teacher. 

Just so far as possible the pupils should make the 
minor regulations and establish the customs of the insti- 
tution. These may be revised as often as the teacher 
and pupils, on mutual conference, shall deem desirable. 
The teacher should so identify himself with the pupils, 
that they shall be felt to be laboring together for a 
common purpose, and that they ought therefore to be 
generous, confiding, and helpful to each other. 

The pupil should be constantly made to feel the bear- 
ing of all his studies, of all the requirements of school, 
of all its restraints and discipline, upon his after life. 
He should not simply be told, in glittering generalities, 
that an education is a good thing to have in the house, 
but he should be taught to watch for the influence of 
each habit and action upon his character. He should see 
how promptness in school is only the antecedent to 
promptness in business ; how thoroughness in one's 
studies develops a noble, valuable trait of mind ; how 
a spirit of industry will help to make him a successful 
business man ; how neatness, kindness, politeness, be- 

6i 



Joel Dorman Steele 

nevolence, thoughtfulness and love, are to be grown as 
beautiful traits which will adorn him for life's work ; 
and that all these will do him more good than even 
Latin or Greek, in the grand struggle for virtue, power, 
and wealth, the honors of this life and the life to come. 
How, in fine, he is to be each day just what he would 
most like to be by and by. 

These great truths should not be taught by dry, 
formal, fault-finding lectures, every night at prayers, 
when the pupil is tired out and only anxious to play 
ball or go to supper. They should be the vital air of 
the school. They should be inhaled at every breath. 
They should be felt as the motive power to all conduct. 
They should be assumed at all times and considered 
everywhere, in class, in play, in conversation. No one 
should ever doubt them a moment, or hesitate in their 
application. 

Every act of school will thus take on a new and start- 
ling significance. The pupil will see that he must re- 
strain his momentary inclinations and private desires, 
because of the general welfare ; that while there may be 
no sin, per se, in certain common practices of school, 
yet their effect on his own character is pernicious, and 
vice versa, while certain modes of conduct may be of no 
great importance of themselves, yet, in their reflex in- 
fluence on himself and their direct influence on the 
school they are beneficial ; that every act which dis- 
turbs the school or tarnishes its fair fame, is a personal 
damage to himself; that he is deeply interested in the 
constant preservation of good order; that his school 
society may take on the highest possible tone, and that 
he may pursue his education under the best and most 
favorable circumstances ; that the teacher who is faith- 

62 



School Government 

fully developing these truths is his best friend, and, as 
his own executive officer, is to be constantly and cor- 
dially supported ; that always in the absence of a teacher 
he is to be more thoughtful than in his presence, since 
then the responsibility rests more directly upon him. 
As a result of all this, teacher and pupil are no longer 
at war. Their spirit and effort are mutual. They are 
fighting a common battle against sin and temptation. 
Shoulder to shoulder, they stand, eye to eye, facing one 
foe. The teacher is wiser and stronger, and so leads 
the column. The scholar, weaker, looks up for counsel 
and guidance. The teacher watches the pupil to help 
him when he gets down, and to point out to him his 
strong and his weak points — not to criticise and to 
punish, to catch him at his peccadilloes and to show 
up his faults. So day by day the hearts of teacher and 
scholar are knit together by ties of sympathy, trust, and 
a fellowship of toil. 

When a school is thus governed by an enlightened 
public sentiment, based on a sense of right and not on 
a teacher's dictum, there is constantly being developed 
in every child that highest realization of all school dis- 
cipline — self-control. This is really the basis of such 
a mode of government; — I do not know but I would 
better have spoken of it earlier. It must always be 
presupposed. 

I have said each pupil must be assumed to have a 
conscience. To this, constant appeals should be made. 
Its dictates should be held sacred. When its decisions 
are manifestly wrong, let it be corrected and cultivated, 
but never broken down or ridden over. He should be 
made to feel his accountability not to his teacher but to 
his God ; that the presence of a teacher neither makes 

63 



Joel Dorman Steele 

nor unmakes right, for that is eternal ; that teacher and 
pupil both stand in the Divine presence, each, in his 
sphere, held to his work, and there can be no dodging. 
Let the teacher walk thus before his school, holding fast 
to his own conscience as he holds them to theirs, con- 
trolling himself as he teaches them to control themselves, 
and day by day there will sink down into the minds of 
his pupils a noble principle of conduct, as they learn 
that sublimest of all arts — the mastery of one's self. 
Insensibly they will discover, — not how to be gov- 
erned, but how to govern ; not how to submit to rules, 
but to take rules on themselves ; not to keep petty 
school regulations, but to observe the great, grand, 
broad laws which underlie all human character and so- 
ciety. His pupils will go out from his school, and as 
they send back the word of cheer from the raging battle 
into which they have plunged, it will be : " Better than 
all studies, better than all knowledge, was that power of 
self-control I wrought out in my soul under your care." 

The pupil who watches his teacher for a chance to 
play the rogue knows nothing of self-government. The 
teacher who has no confidence in his pupils, who dares 
not trust them in the schoolroom alone with the door 
closed behind him, but stands in the entry way with his 
hand on the knob, the door ajar, one eye at the crack 
and the other on his visitor, has something yet to learn 
of school government. Eye-service is the meanest of 
service. Are scholars really getting any valuable training 
in school that will last them until they step into real life, if 
it has not force enough to bridge over a five-minute gap? 
Has the teacher who plays the spy much confidence in 
the permanence of his work or the vitality of his instruc- 
tion? His own distrust judges him but too fearfully. 

64 



School Government 

The difficulty with many teachers lies just here : they 
teach well enough ; their instructions are " faultily fault- 
less, icily regular, splendidly miliy No one can com- 
plain of their discipline, only somehow it does not lasi — 
it does not take hold of the pupils. The system they 
adopt is that of constant reproof. Visit their rooms 
and you hear all the while — " John, stop that." " Mary, 
tend to your work." " Sally, go to your seat." Every 
peccadillo is marked ; every lapse from duty is chided. 
Their idea is to trim — to chip off all scraggy offshoots 
and ungainly branches, and bring the life into shape as 
one would bring a tree into a desired form. This con- 
stant scolding frets the teacher, annoys the pupil, begets 
ill-will, and prevents the growth of any tender feelings 
or warm affections. Besides, it is defective in principle. 
It works from the outside. Christ put it, " From the 
heart are the issues of life." If we would have a revolu- 
tion in conduct, we must have a genuine conversion, an 
entire change of purpose that is felt in the heart and 
along the life currents. We may lop off a fault here, but 
the same vigorous growth within thrusts out another 
shoot yonder, and we have accomplished nothing. It 
is mere change of base, not of action. 

We want a radical change. We should therefore 
cease pruning and insert a bud at the root. New 
motives must actuate, new impulses be felt, new ideas 
of life be formed. 

With very young children there must be, of course, 
frequent criticism and repression. But when a boy or 
girl is under our care six hours per day we can and 
should find out his bent of mind. We should study 
his character, his disposition, how to influence him, and 
how he needs influencing. We should get hold of him 
5 65 



Joel Dorman Steele 

in some way, reach the springs of action in his soul and 
then the work is done. After all, Inspii-ation is the 
great work of the teacher. We may talk about methods 
of government and modes of instruction, but give me the 
teacher who can inspire with a new life, who can breathe 
into every soul the quickening forces of living truth, who 
can take a dull, listless boy and implant in his mind a 
great thought that, working out his salvation, will mould 
and transform his whole being. What becomes of arith- 
metic, grammar, or even geography by the side of such 
Heaven-born results? 

Fellow-teachers, I prize the work of the schoolroom, 
chiefly because in it character is made. I do not under- 
value the English branches, — the use of our mother- 
tongue or the grander language of nature, but I look 
upon all these studies as only the tools by which we 
fashion souls. The end of school-life is not to Icani but 
to train ; not to kmnv but to be. The lessons must be 
committed, the examinations passed, the petty detail 
gone through ; but none of these things, for themselves, 
as an end. The multiplication table — be it never so 
well learned, the intricacies of grammar — however thor- 
oughly mastered, do not really and fully fit students for 
life and its responsibilities. It is the habits of thought, 
the quickness of apprehension, the thoroughness of exe- 
cution, the power of adapting means to an end and 
organizing success, the extent of self-control they have 
developed — these form the permanent part of their 
school work. The scholar will soon forget the lessons 
he has learned, but the growth he has made is his for- 
ever. When seen in this light the round of our daily 
toil, vexatious and tedious as it is, takes on a new and 
strange import. He who gains the highest secures all 

66 



School Government 

below. Seek first the Kingdom of righteousness and all 
these things shall be added unto you. While struggling 
in school after manhood and womanhood, somehow we 
have the best lessons, the liveliest recitations, the 
soundest discipline, and the truest order. Our hearts 
are cheered as we see here a sluggish nature roused to 
action, there a careless one fired with a better impulse, 
and watch, stirring like leaven in the minds of all, those 
homely, old-time truths of virtue, purity, zeal, honor, and 
faith — those celestial forces which bind the soul of man 
to the soul of God. 

These remarks may seem to you too serious, too 
solemn — may seem to lift the teacher's work up to a 
level higher than most can reach, higher than you deem it 
proper to attempt. When these words were penned, I 
had come to my desk from the freshly-closed grave of a 
favorite pupil. I may therefore perhaps be pardoned, 
if my thoughts took on something of an outlook and an 
uplook j if I thought less of the study and more of the 
soul, less of chemistry and more of character, less of 
school and more of life ! Walking as it were in the 
crypts of another existence, with the long shadows of 
eternity falling athwart my path, the beautiful, touch- 
ing words of Jeanie Deans, in her address to the queen, 
kept ringing in my ears : — 

" When the hour of trouble comes to the mind or to 
the body — and seldom may it visit your leddyship — and 
when the hour of death comes, that comes to high and low — 
lang and late may it be yours — O, my leddy, then it isna 
what we hae dune for oursels, but what we hae dune for 
ithers, that we think on maist pleasantly." 



67 



CHAPTER VIII 
THE TEACHER'S AIM ^ 

BY JOEL DORMAN STEELE 

THE flight of a projectile depends upon the aim of 
the gun. If that be downward the bullet is only 
battered to pieces on the gravel or perhaps digs its own 
grave in the soft soil not a fathom's distance from the 
muzzle. If that be upward there is a flame of fire, a 
long train of light and a glorious sweep up toward the 
stars. If again thai be the aim of a practised eye and 
a disciphned hand, there is a flash, a flame, a scream of 
the bullet as before, but there is also an object secured, 
a target struck, a traitor punished and the majesty of the 
law vindicated. 

Here we have the ignorant shot of the blunderer, 
the wild shot of the enthusiast, and Xhe fatal shot of 
the veteran soldier. 

There are teachers corresponding to these several 
marksmen. 

I. Here is one whose plodding soul never soars above 
the eaves of his log school-house and so takes in no 
broad views of his own life or his mission in developing 
a better life in others. He looks upon his pupils and 
sees thick skin to be pounded, and he diligently searches 
for the soft spots. He beholds the body and the book 
and he endeavors to put the one into the other. But 

1 Written 1867. Rewritten 1876. 
68 



The Teacher's Aim 

the soul of the one and the spirit of the other he never 
comprehends. They he beyond his comprehension. 
He aims at no mark, because he sees none. He de- 
velops no soul-life, because he has no appreciation of it. 
He inspires no ambition, because he possesses none. 

2. The enthusiast is a teacher of a diiferent stamp. 
He tries to do good but his notions are visionary and 
his efforts spasmodic. He is a man of one idea and he 
rides his hobby to the death. To-day it is all order. 
Yesterday it was arithmetic. To-morrow it will be 
grammar. He is a radical, if it is proper to apply that 
term to a man who does not go to the roots of things but 
contents himself with a single grip at the stalk. He is 
full of Quixotic schemes — ideas new to himself and, it 
is to be hoped, confined to himself. He is perpetually 
striking off at a tangent, picking up a notion here and a 
notion there — trying everything and holding fast to 
nothing. He goes up like a rocket on one plan, only to 
come down like a stick on another. Full of zeal, full 
of energy, all animation and good-will for his pupils, 
he is also full of sound and fury signifying nothing. His 
pupils generally like him, and his patrons talk of his de- 
votion to his profession, while his sallow face and sleep- 
less nights often speak eloquently of his self-abnegation. 
But this teacher never accomplishes anything except 
killing himself. He aims not at one mark but a thou- 
sand, and so hits none. He uses a shot gun that scat- 
ters the charge into a cloud of ineffective missiles. He 
inspires, but it is with the heat of a pitch-pine bonfire 
that lights up the whole heavens for an instant and then 
dies out in darkness ; not the steady warmth of the sun- 
beam that melts the ice and mantles the earth with 
vegetation. He works by no pattern, imitates no 

69 



Joel Dorman Steele 

model, and having no well conceived plan achieves no 
result. His life is dissipated like the force of gun- 
powder fired in the open air; it makes a roar and a 
flash, but speeds no bullet. 

3. The true teacher is the marksman. He uses a 
rifle, molds his instruction into a bullet and aims straight 
at the bull's-eye. He does no random teaching, but 
every lesson, every study, points to a result. He has a 
system of instruction, and works by it. He understands 
something of the laws of the human mind and is governed 
by them. He reads character and adapts himself to it. 
No new theory, no new-fangled notion crazes him. He 
is guided by fundamental principles and he sees that 
no system can fit him unless he has evolved it from 
his own soul and molded it into form through his own 
experience. He never pushes the young mind far out 
on one line of thought, but strives to develop it uni- 
formly and evenly, believing that it should be like 
a sphere with all points of the circumference equally 
distant from the centre. He does not run wild on 
geography or Latin or physics, as if any one of these 
were the be-all and end-all of an education. Each sub- 
ject sinks to its place as subordinate to the grand whole, 
and useful only in its place and share. He does not 
waste his strength in wild, intermittent, aimless efforts, 
but in sober earnestness he works truly, faithfully, walk- 
ing by the compass and the eternal stars, striving in 
God's fear to develop an immortal soul according to His 
laws. He has an inner faith and hope that he will turn 
out from his forming hands well-rounded character, — 
even as the furnaceman, working not in living soul and 
immortal spirit but in dead sand and dumb metal, draws 
forth from his mould the delicate casting he has made. 

70 



The Teacher's Aim 

For what is the teacher to labor? What aim is to 
inspire him amid the dull routine of his toil? In the 
schoolroom, oppressed by the responsibility of his 
position, annoyed by the dulness of his pupils, dis- 
pirited by his lack of support, hindered by meddling 
parents, unsupplied with proper apparatus and appur- 
tenances, discouraged by his own lack of patience, 
fretful, unhappy, soul-racked and alone, what thought, 
what motive shall lift him above the endless monotony 
and tedious vexations of his task, shall thrill his soul 
with the inspiration of a new life, shall send the blood 
bounding through his sluggish veins, shall kindle a fresh 
purpose, and make that dull schoolroom seem to him 
the brightest spot on earth, and that stupid round of 
duties the most blessed work that he can do? In a 
word, what is the high aim of the teacher? Is it merely 
to teach arithmetic, grammar, geography, to decline 
hie, haec, hoc, or even to dig up Greek roots whole, 
down to the most delicate fibre ? Is it essential to an 
American citizen that he should know the exact length 
of the Hoang Ho, or be able to state whether the Yang- 
tse-kiang is a branch of the Kinsha-kiang or, vice versa, 
the Kinsha-kiang of the Yang-tse-kiang? In order to 
employ the elective franchise intelligently and be a re- 
spectable member of society, must he be able to name 
all the Sandwich Islands and locate Okefinokee Swamp? 
to repeat all the tables in denominate numbers and to 
"do every sum" in percentage and equation of pay- 
ments and arbitration of exchange? and to arrange 
" Paradise Lost " in huge diagrams of " linked sweetness 
long drawn out? " 

For what object do I teacli grammar? Is it that the 
pupil may know precisely when a word is a pronominal 

71 



Joel Dorman Steele 

adjective and when an adjective pronoun? — a distinc- 
tion which, by the bye, I always have to determine for 
the occasion when I wish to be precise, and invariably 
forget in five minutes thereafter ! We are told that 
"English grammar is the art of speaking and writing 
the English language correctly." Is, then, my knowl- 
edge of this study to be based upon the skill with which 
I can play top and catch with the dry bones of some 
extinct sentence, upon my rattling, tripping definitions, 
and upon my construction of the subtleties of the in- 
finitive mood ? Are these things the end of grammati- 
cal construction or only the means ? Are these the 
finished wor-k or only the tools ? If I can conjugate a 
verb like a parrot and yet say " went " for " gone," am 
I a good grammarian? How shall I be judged, by the 
accuracy of my definitions or the beauty of my sentences ? 

I send a boy to serve an apprenticeship at a black- 
smith shop ; at the conclusion of his term of service 
he returns, and I ask him to forge me a clevis for my 
plough. " Oh," says he, " I can't do that." " But why 
not? Have n't I sent you to learn the blacksmith's 
trade?" "Yes, and I have learned it. I can swing the 
sledge and blow the bellows beautifully." Am I not 
justly disgusted ? What do I care about sledge-swinging 
or bellows-blowing? These are essential of course, every 
blacksmith does that — but what I want from that boy 
is a clevis to put on my ploui^h. 

I send my boy to school to study grammar. He 
comes home and makes an egregious blunder in his 
use of language. I criticise him and ask him if he has 
not studied grammar. " Oh yes," he says, " I can 
decline the nouns and parse beautifully." Am I not 
disgusted, and rightly? Every grammarian, of course, 

72 



The Teacher's Aim 

does something of that, more or less, but what I want 
of that boy is a good English sentence. 

Does grammar constitute anything more than the 
mere scaffolding, necessary it is true to the erection of 
the building but being itself no part thereof and to 
be removed directly upon the completion of the edifice ? 
Or, better yet, are not the definitions and the minute 
classification and all that, only the sepals of that sweet 
flower — the English language — which are to fall off 
when the perfect seed — our grammatical style and 
conversation — is completely formed ? 

I have spoken of grammar, but the same truth holds 
good of every study pursued in school. It seems to 
me that the mere teaching of rules, definitions, methods 
of analysis, and critical distinctions should be no part 
of the aim of a teacher : they are to be taught to a 
certain extent, oj course, but, after all, the bold, out- 
lying principles should be implanted deeply in the 
mind as a foundation. The teacher should constantly 
look away from vexatious and minute peculiarities and 
grapple with the general truths and the widespread 
basal formations of each science he teaches. He must 
not, in surveying the territory he wishes his pupils to 
" go up and possess," make them wade through every 
swamp and carefully examine every stick, stone, tree 
and shrub. 

I know with some this seems to imply a want of 
thoroughness and accuracy. They think a pupil ac- 
comphshed in a study when he can repeat all its rules 
and definitions and explain a few of its many subtleties. 
I beg leave to differ here. A class in Virgil came under 
my instruction a few years ago. The pupils had studied 
Latin two years. They could recite all the rules in 

73 



Joel Dorman Steele 

Andrews and Stoddard's Grammar in six minutes by 
the watch. This was one of their recitation feats. 
They knew just what cases of a noun, or tense, number 
or person of a verb were wanting. Their knowledge 
of detail was wonderful. They took, however, only 
one and one half lines of the ALneid. My utmost 
efforts failed to push them along at a greater speed. 
I never could get them up to take a bird's-eye view of 
a paragraph. They could only plod along among 
verbal quibbles and facts, and I at last gave up the class 
in despair. No valuable result is achieved by any such 
process, only preparatory work has been done. The 
lumberman has all the while been grinding up his axe, 
but has n't learned how to chop at all. The whetting, 
the fine keen edge, each is good enough and necessary 
in its place, but the chopping after all is the end, and 
not a good sharp axe. He is the best instructor who 
teaches how to fit the tool for use and ho7a to use if. 
There is in my opinion a great deal of humbug about 
even so good a thing as accurate scholarship. There 
are two kinds of accuracy and this breeds much 
confusion. 

One is the microscopic accuracy of the beetle that 
crouches under its leaf and pokes its tiny snout up and 
down, seeing every minute thing, insect and animalcule, 
that comes within the range of its little, black, shiny 
eye. But after all that is only a beetle hiowkdge. It 
is simply the hfe under one small cabbage leaf in the 
garden, while the great world-life goes throbbing and 
roaring on outside. 

The other is the telescopic accuracy of the eagle that 
disdains the fogs and damps and confinement of the 
lowlands, and mounts up into the clear blue ether and 

74 



The Teacher's Aim 

thence looks down on river and valley and forest. 
That king of birds has an eye keen and sharp. He 
sees pretty much everything that swims through the 
waters, or flies over the land, or runs through the woods. 
But, better than that, his comprehensive eye takes in 
the contour of the landscape, the far sweep of the hills, 
the course of the rivers, and all those grand outlines 
that make him a geographer to be envied. 

The true teacher is the eagle, not the beetle. He 
uses the telescope for bringing far distant objects near, 
not a microscope for magnifying little things that are 
close by out of all relation to everything else. He 
knows that in the real struggle of life the little things, 
the catches, the exceptions of any study will be swept 
by the board, and only the great, bold principles will 
be retained. Hence he sees to it that his pupils master 
that which will alone be to them of permanent value. 
All the minutiae are made subsidiary to this end. 

The whole subject narrows itself down to that thread- 
bare query : — Is the main object of a teacher to in- 
struct or to train 1 This grand, old debating question 
of the fathers is good food for thought to-day. These 
are vastly diverse tasks. It makes much difference 
whether I am trying to see how much my pupils can 
know or how much they can do, whether I am furnish- 
ing their minds, or drawing out and disciplining their 
latent energies. I know teachers who seem to think 
the youthful mind a sort of cistern, and their work to be 
mainly one of getting up eave-troughs and conductors. 

How different is the work of the trainer — for this 
seems to me the name of the true teacher. He under- 
stands his business to be not simply the hearing of 
reading, spelling, geometry and Latin lessons. He 

75 



Joel Dorman Steele 

teaches these branches, and his pupils become excellent 
scholars, but this is all incidental — the mere side is- 
sues which are always accomplished when one attempts 
a great result. He impresses upon their minds that 
their studies are only tools with which to work out a 
finished manhood or womanhood ; and that each lesson 
conscientiously learned and honestly recited is a polishing 
stroke on the fine stone of their life structure. The 
touchstone, the test of all conduct, is Jiot the will of the 
teacher but the effect ttpon life, — that long life that 
stretches out through the eternities to come. 

Day by day this conscientious teacher strives to 
drop into each soul one basal truth — / at?i personally 
respotisible for my conduct — a truth so weighty that 
it will gravitate down through the turbid waters of life 
to the very bottom and abide there forever. He does 
not hedge in by rules — for these are generally more 
annoying to the teacher than the pupil. No regulation 
can be kept to the letter, and once broken it is like a 
shattered mirror — worthless thereafter. He does not 
make every lapse from duty a thing personal to himself, 
thus becoming the incarnation of law — at once the 
source, the standard and the executor of justice — so 
that every good deed is done to him and every evil 
act is done against him, and scholars come to do 
right because they love him and to do mischief when- 
ever they hate him. But he does something that is 
far better. 

He knows that you cannot by trimming a tree turn 
sweet apples into sour. You may cut and train for 
years and improve the size and the flavor, but the day 
you stop your work the limbs shoot out, and that fall 
you see the relapse — you get your old sour apples 

76 



The Teacher's Ann 

again. The reason is apparent. All your work has 
been from the exterior. You want an interior change. 
Put in a graft, or, better yet, make the change a radical 
one — a root work — and put in a bud close to the 
ground. 

Just so the wise teacher, avoiding the incessant re- 
proofs that so imbitter school life and vex all the souls 
concerned in it, strives to raise his pupils to a truer ideal. 
He makes them responsible not to him but to God. 
He brings them out into the light where they catch the 
Eye — the all-seeing Eye — and realize that the presence 
of a teacher makes neither right nor wrong ; that all the 
guides to noble conduct exist in school as in society, and 
what is proper in one is proper in the other. He im- 
presses upon them the importance of life ; that they in 
school have commenced life and are living it already ; 
that they must grow into what they are to become ; that 
new and heavier responsibilities will give them no fresh 
power but only an opportunity to use what they have pre- 
viously acquired ; that they are forming habits of action 
and modes of thought that are to abide with them 
through all time ; that they can never perfectly heal 
over any wrong-doing but that it leaves a scar forever ; 
that school is for them, not for parent or teacher; 
that a day or an hour lost is so much subtracted from 
their training for life's work ; that they are responsible 
not only for their individual improvement but for all 
their influence over others; that if a single scholar 
wastes an hour they are all to blame if they could have 
helped it ; that to fool the teacher is easy enough but 
to fool one's self is impossible ; that they must husband 
every scrap of time as the choicest of treasure, since 
upon it hangs their ultimate success ; that they must 

77 



Joel Dorman Steele 

economize time and books and clothes and money and 
opportunities for good, and be miserly of all that dig- 
nifies and ennobles ; that no act is insignificant, but that 
each, like a tiny flake of snow, trembles downward to 
combine with its fellows and form the avalanche that 
shall sweep them irresistibly onward to success or to 
ruin ; that there is no accident in Hfe, but that all 
things come in direct recompense, by weights and 
measures, and that in the high sense of justice every 
one makes the bed in which he is to lie. Finally, and 
in a word, the true teacher endeavors to found in his 
school a model society in which the principles of truth, 
like leaven, shall work out their true results. 

What will be the outcome of this mode of teaching ? 
Why, his pupils will keep better order in his absence 
than in his presence, since they feel more personal re- 
sponsibility, and public opinion, like a heavy iron hand, 
would restrain all the evil-disposed. His classes will 
not wait for him, but will commence reciting when the 
time comes and will finish their work as if he were 
present. Even though he should be absent all day, his 
school would select a teacher and run till the nightfall 
without friction or noise. Is this too much to expect? 
I tell you, ladies and gentlemen, we can take iron and 
brass and make a watch that will keep time when its 
owner is sound asleep, that will run on correctly with- 
out winding for a year. He is a poor watchmaker who 
cannot make one that will run twenty-four hours. Can 
we do more with dead, dumb metal than we can with liv- 
ing throbbing human hearts? Can we accomplish more 
accurate, definite, reliable results with our skilled hands 
than our trained minds? Shall a teacher of immortal 
souls give in to a maker of machinery? Nay, verily ! 

78 



The Teacher's Aim 

" But," says some one, " you would make a Christian 
school — you would be taking religion into the school- 
room." My friend, we will not quarrel about names, 
but I would not teach a Mohammedaii school, and, believ- 
ing as I do in God and the Bible, I would not teach an 
infidel school. Understanding from the truths of Revela- 
tion and the teaching of all history that greatness 
depends on virtue and that religion is the fountain 
and support of virtue, I deem it my solemn duty to teach 
my pupils that obedience and reverence and honesty and 
earnestness and kindliness are noble and lovely in them- 
selves ; that there is nothing pure in Heaven or glori- 
ous on Earth to which they may not attain ; that the 
inspiration of all duty is from and in God ; that the 
grandest thing on earth is an educated, loving, sympathiz- 
ing, whole-souled man or woman, and the grandest thing 
in Heaven — save God — is a hero crowned from the 
battles of life. 

And, more than this, living in a Christian land and 
trained by Puritan ancestry, I believe in Christ. The 
most precious name to me, above that of mother or 
wife or home, is the name of Jesus. Can I teach my 
pupils to love everything else and not love Him? Shall 
I myself drink at this living spring of love and not lead 
them thereto, but stopping at CastaHa's fount bid them 
be satisfied while I go up higher? 

My friends, the lack of this world to-day is educated 
Christian men and women. If our schools were faith- 
ful to their mission, this would not be. Hear Arnold — 
that master teacher — " The idea of a Christian school 
is the very idea of a school itself. The boys are to be 
treated as those who are to grow up Christian men." 
All admit that we are to teach morals in school. How 

79 



Joel Dorman Steele 

are we to do it ? Hear the famous Rugby master again. 
" As well imagine a man with a sense for sculpture not 
cultivating it by the remains of great art, or a man with 
a sense for poetry not cultivating it by the help of 
Homer and Shakespeare, as a man with a sense for con- 
duct not cultivating it by the help of the Bible." 

Fellow teachers ! There be many of us who do not 
half appreciate the responsibility that rests upon us. 
Lord Shaftesbury recently stated in a public meeting in 
London that he had ascertained by personal observation 
that of adult male criminals nearly all had begun a course 
of crime between the ages of eight and sixteen — and 
that, if a young man should pursue a virtuous life till he 
was twenty years of age there were forty-nine chances in 
favor of his continuing honest thereafter and only one 
against it. 

There is but one time in all life when the best results 
can be attained. The youthful mind is like a lake asleep 
in the summer's sun. Ev-ery zephyr ripples its surface. 
Every tiny leaf dimples its placid bosom. Every cloud 
is reflected from its glassy mirror and every drooping 
bough meets an answering kiss. Every child sees pic- 
tures of forest and hill far down in its mysterious depths. 
Its waters press up close against the shore and take the 
impress of every rugged rock and indentation. They 
bend and yield to and encircle every object they touch. 
The diamond receives no more loving an embrace than 
the roughest stick or stone. But winter comes and 
the icy fetters are forged. The glassy mirror is stiffened 
to stone. The surface becomes hard and rigid. The 
depths where the eye feasted on another and a richer 
world of beauty are sealed. Chariots and horsemen may 
now thunder along its solid track and leave no impres- 

80 



The Teacher's Aim 

sion on that frigid, flinty pavement. The teacher has to 
do with the mind in its spring-time, when the gushing, 
sparkUng spirits of youth dance and leap up to meet him, 
taking form and color from his Hghtest word and reveal- 
ing to his earnest eye their innermost depths of thought 
and feeling. But the winter of life comes and the waters 
are chilled to ice, the sunshine and sparkle have died 
into darkness, and the soul is closed to the eye of all 
save God. 

This figure is not overdrawn. The character of a man 
cannot be essentially changed. The channels of feeling 
and thought are dug deep and broad. The currents may 
perchance by a power Divine be turned, but the beds in 
which they once flowed remain with their beetling cliffs 
and their wave-worn banks. And he who studies such a 
character easily detects their presence, as the geologist 
surveying a country sees preserved amid the wreck of a 
thousand years the traces of the old water-courses — 
the beaches of the antediluvian ocean and the sand and 
gravel once washed by the Paleozoic wave. 

I admit that education and society often seem to 
modify even the matured character; but the keen eye 
of the critic soon detects the varnish and the veneer. 
You remember the old story of the educated wolf. In 
the days of fable it is said a person caught a wolf which 
seemed so exceedingly docile that he attempted to teach 
it its letters. Success crowned this effort. The wolf 
learned the entire alphabet. He next took up syllables, 
and here again it did admirably and he was encouraged 
to try words. But now came the first obstacle. Every 
combination of letters and syllables spelled only one 
word — sheep. The poor teacher tried again and again, 
but only got a repetition of sheep ! sheep ! The wolf- 
6 8i 



Joel Dorman Steele 



nature was too much and he was obliged to abandon his 
well meant and apparently promising effort. If the 
wolves which prey on society are ever reformed, it will 
be when the young are taught before they have learned 
the taste of sheep and so by successive generations the 
wolf nature itself is "evolved " out of the character. 

I have the profoundest confidence in thorough, earnest 
teaching. The transformations which it accomplishes 
are the miracles of to-day and of all days. It thrills my 
soul when I think how in many an old log school-house, 
in many a poor primary department, in many a room 
crowded and noisy with restless children, a whole-souled 
devoted teacher — generally a woman, underpaid, wearied 
and anxious — is shaping the life and deciding the 
destiny of the men who are to control the state and 
guide the legislation of the generation to come ! 

These truths I have named are powerful. They will 
revolutionize character and make the school a training- 
place for real life. Pupil and parent will feel their 
value, for they come home to the consciousness of every 
one. But then it is not enough for them to be merely 
cast into the school and left to work their own way. 
The teacher must be the energizing element of the 
whole — the leaven wherewith to leaven the loaf. He 
must awaken and arouse. He must be like the prime- 
conductor of an electrical machine while in action, that is 
charged to overflowing, that shocks everybody it touches 
and induces currents even in those who are not close 
enough to catch the sparkles that leap off continually to 
every one who comes near. His entrance into a school- 
room should be like the influx of fresh air and sunshine, 
and his going out should be that of a magnet from a 
heap of iron filings — all covered with clinging confiding 

82 



The Teacher's Aim 

ones, drawn to him by a magnetism tliey have no thought 
of resisting. His pupils will love him because he first 
loved them. A wave of mutual devotion sets into his 
school each day, like the tide, hiding all bitterness and 
unkindness and buoying every one up and on. Full of 
cheer himself, kind words and loving smiles follow him 
everywhere, as the day chases the sun laughing round 
the earth. 

"But," says one, " a single term is too short a time in 
which to accomplish such results as you name." My 
friend, remember the seed-time is never long. We 
scatter the grain, however, just the same, having faith in a 
harvest. We never expect an immediate return. We 
never return to the barn for the cradle when we first 
come back from the field with the drill. But the seed 
lies beneath the winter's snow and ere the spring the 
husbandman may have gone to his rest. But April suns 
warm the quickening germ and the fresh warm tides of 
life throb through the cold earth. Summer passes and 
the harvest comes at last. Other hands will gather it, 
and it will be just as abundant, and the song of the har- 
vest home will ring out just as gladly. 

Philosophy tells us that all physical force is inde- 
structible. I touch this table with my finger : the power 
I exert is communicated to the table, the floor, the 
foundation, the great earth itself. I see no efifect pro- 
duced, but the laws of mechanics are immutable and I 
know it must be so. A force exerted must produce an 
effect. A teacher works faithfully in a school, struggles 
to mould some heart after a more beautiful pattern, and 
apparently fails. But spiritual mechanics has its laws. 
No force is ever lost. No heart throbs for the truth in 
vain. " It is impossible," says Seneca, " to approach the 

83 



Joel Dorman Steele 

light without deriving some faint coloring from it, or to 
tarry long near precious odors without bearing away some 
trace of their fragrance." The seed may fall by the way- 
side, but then it does some good, — it feeds the fowls of 
the air. Some springs up and withers because it lacks 
depth of soil, but it is not wasted, — those decayed 
stalks and withered leaves will nourish other vegetation. 
Some falls immediately in good, fertile soil and bears 
fruit, ripe luscious fruit, and angels will come at the har- 
vest and gather that fruit into the master's garner. 

*' Is Mr. Butler dead ? " asked Queen CaroUne of Arch- 
bishop Blackburn. " No, madam, but he is buried ! " 
So every kind word we utter, every loving smile is 
enwrapped with the Divine life. No one ever saw the 
grave of a good deed ! 

Water falls in a shower, in a multitude of tiny drops 
that soon settle into the dry and thirsty earth. No one 
watches where each one strikes or whither it goes. Yet 
each little globule hastens downward, moistens some 
delicate fibre, is absorbed by some greedy mouth and 
reappears at last in the brighter green and the rosier hue 
of the blossom above. We cannot tell where each drop 
has gone, but we can tell what all have done as we see 
the whole landscape gleam forth with a fresher life and a 
brighter glow. So the little insignificant acts and words 
of our teacher life filter away into the dry soil of the 
hearts and lives of those about us and we cannot tell 
where they have gone, but they will reappear at last in 
the added glory and the richer ripeness of humanity's 
great, broad harvests. 

Fellow teachers, we are not working for ourselves. 
We are building for Another. The Master Builder will 
not accept any work that is not done for Him and the 

84 



The Teacher's Aim 

blessed eternities. We must be in sympathy with Him 
and develop His plans. I have been often struck with 
an anecdote of our late President which illustrates this 
idea. A company of ministers waited upon him and 
were as usual very kindly received. After much earnest 
conversation they asked him if he felt sure that in the 
course he was pursuing God was working with him. 
" Oh," said Mr. Lincoln, " that has never caused me a 
moment's thought. I am not particular about it." The 
clergymen looked up in amazement. " What ! not par- 
ticular whether God is working with you ? " exclaimed 
they. " No," said the martyred President, " it has al- 
ways seemed to me of much more importance whether 
I am working with God." 

Let this grand thought come into our minds and 
the drudgery of our daily toil will take on a beauty 
that will charm our very soul. Our scholars, too, cheered 
by our example, thrilled by our teachings, will drink in 
our inspiration, and so it will come to pass that our bar- 
ren schoolrooms will be transfigured into something al- 
together lovely, into the very scene of Jacob's vision — 
a ladder reaching up to Heaven, bright rejoicing angels 
going up and down the steps of it, and at the top thereof 
the voice of God Himself. 



85 



CHAPTER IX 

THE MAKING OF BOOKS 

HE who could not be satisfied with the semblance 
of obedience could not be satisfied with the 
semblance of learning. As a teacher, Dr. Steele's great 
aim was to lead his pupils, individually, into such 
methods of thinking and observing as should stimulate 
and compel personal investigation. In the schoolroom, 
his magnetic tact and earnestness, combined with his 
power of adaptation, made every member of his classes 
an enthusiast. He was now about to prove that the 
same subtle influence lay at the point of his pen. The 
need of shorter, more elementary, and more inspiring 
text-books in Science had pressed him sorely, and before 
he took up work in Elmira he had already made radical 
changes in customs of study and class recitation. 
Through him, in both Mexico and Newark, the scien- 
tific departments had acquired great impetus, and his 
individual research, experiment and illustration had 
shown him something of his talent as a pioneer in 
methods. Soon, his acquisition of facts, his tried tests, 
his increase of explanatory powers, his effective points, 
apt illustrations, clear definitions and luminous demon- 
strations, became his first reliance for class use, and the 
prescribed text-books took second place. In Chemistry 
he found himself able to teach the full course laid down 
from his own copious notes and rational arrangement of 

86 



The Making of Books 

material. In short, he had in his everyday work, and 
without definite intention toward actual authorship, 
developed a text-book of his own. 

But this fact, when he discovered it, gave him no ex- 
pectation of renown or pecuniary profit. His ambition 
was still confined to the profession he loved and the 
eager minds in his own schoolroom. Inspired by the 
enthusiasm he had awakened in his pupils, and by their 
growing proficiency under his instruction, he resolved to 
print the material he had prepared, for his own use 
and at his own expense. He hoped also to find a 
place for his book in Newark. To Mrs. Steele he wrote 
April 7, 1867 : 

" I received an invitation day before yesterday to fill 
Thomas K. Beecher's pulpit during May and June. The call 
is UNANIMOUS. I put that in small caps, because they so 
sent it to me. They ask only one sermon a Sunday and tell 
me to take it quietly as I please. I think I will accept. I 
hope to get money enough from my sales in Newark and 
here with my preaching to publish my book." 

Thus he planned to use the money returns from his 
sermons to enlarge his work as a teacher, and he had 
made arrangements to have his book printed by the 
Elmira Advertiser, as the New York house with which he 
had negotiated somewhat did not ofi"er what he could 
afford as to terms. 

Same letter : 

" I hold to my resolve to publish here, without making 
another attempt to be printed in New York. They may 
want my book for themselves one of these days. Who can 
tell? 

" I hope for the best from my litde venture. I can get 
five hundred copies for three hundred and fifty dollars, and 

87 



Joel Dorman Steele 

get my money back in two years anyway, so I will not lose 
much except my interest. I am succeeding beyond all my 
hopes. Many points that seemed difficult for me to harmon- 
ize I have classified so well that I think I can make all plain 
to a class. I am glad of this and know it will please you 
when you see it." 

It was at about this time that, as he has told us in his 
sketch, a friend, an agent for the school-books of A. S. 
Barnes & Co. of New York City, called on Professor 
Steele and to him the latter confided his own scheme of 
a private publication, showing him some of the manu- 
script. The agent was much pleased with it and on his 
return to New York reported it so favorably that Mr. 
Charles J. Barnes, after some preliminary correspon- 
dence, took occasion while on a business visit to Elmira, 
to call on the possible book-maker. 

The captivating qualities of the manuscript won the 
trained ear of Mr. Barnes at one sitting and by one chap- 
ter. So it fell out that on his departure he bore with 
him the pages which were to introduce the author to a 
new world of action. 

May 20, 1867, came a letter from Mr. A. S. Barnes, 
the experienced head of the firm — a man of calm and 
deliberate judgment, and possessed of a business sense 
that precluded any errors of impulse. 

" We have," he wrote, " examined your Chemistry and are 
inclined to think it supersedes as interesting reading matter 
any now in existence on the same subject. It meets a want 
in common-school education which has heretofore been but 
poorly supplied. Its language is simple, its illustrations 
well-chosen, its extent sufficient. By a pleasant statement 
of dry but important facts you have placed within the com- 
prehension of a mere child what otherwise he could not 
touch. We approve the work most heartily." 

88 



The Making of Books 

What this letter meant to the young man, so unex- 
pectedly led to wait editorial decision, only they can 
know who have experienced the delight of similar 
approval. Nothing is like it except the joy of greet- 
ing the brain-child when it returns to the author of its 
being in the glory of print and other fitting accompani- 
ments. In all after victories that came to Dr. Steele, it 
is doubtful whether any pleasure in them exceeded this 
— the earliest. It was one of the "sweet first times" 
that belong to everything good in life, and, as such, hap- 
pily and forever marked the place where larger demands 
moved him to new efforts, and larger aspirations advanced 
to greater fulfilments. 

Before 1868, Professor Steele wrote to Mrs. Steele, 
referring to a prominent Elmira bookseller's visit to 
New York : 

" Mr. Hall says that Mr. Barnes is delighted with my 
book, and that, though he had not expected to make money 
with the Chemistry, only hoping to save himself, he finds it 
profitable and going all over the country without his effort. 
He believes it will pay to push it and he is going to do so. 
He thinks that the Astronomy will also be very popular." 

Already, as the extract shows, the firm had proposed 
a new book, of which they wrote Dec. 12, 1867 : 

" We are glad you think so favorably of our proposal to 
write an Astronomy. A book not larger than the Chemistry, 
and on the same plan of making the science interesting, 
would best fill the bill." 

The Astronomy was written in 1868, and the Natural 
Philosophy (afterward, at its revision, entitled Physics), 
was copyrighted in 1869. The man, then, whose first 



Joel Dorman Steele 

book was accepted in May 1867, by the autumn of 1869 
was the author of three copyrighted volumes. And not 
only were these enthusiastically welcomed by the pub- 
lishers, but a request was immediately made for another, 
with yet another in prospect after it. The publishers 
wrote under date September 30, 1869: 

" As A. Ward said at the tomb of Shakespeare, you are ' a 
great success.' But for all that you must n't overwork for 
us — or any other man. We won't crowd you a particle. 
Make good books and take your time about it. Whatever 
you make will sell — witness seven thousand five hundred 
Philosophies gone already, and the hungry public playing 
Oliver Twist on a large scale." 

Later, in reference to a Geology : 

" If you will make a Geology next — do it. If you can 
combine with the professor mentioned and so relieve your- 
self from a part of the work — good ! But the writing must 
be yours, and the book must be ' Steele's Fourteen Weeks,' 
though the skies fall ! " 

So it came to pass that 1870 saw copyrighted a Key to 
the Sciences, and a Geology, and the desk once more 
cleared for another engagement. And this time, with 
much hesitation before undertaking his task, he set to 
work on the greatest success of his life, in so far as 
meeting an urgent want and obtaining financial results 
therefrom constitute success. He wrote the famous 
Barnes' Brief History of the United States. This phe- 
nomenal book, copyrighted in 1871, will receive fuller 
attention later. 

And now the demands on his pen made necessary a 
new choice of professions, or, more properly, one line 
only of educational work. If he remained in school he 



The Making of Books 

must turn away from constant and vehement calls for 
fresh manuscript, or at least do but meagerly and slowly 
that which he was pressed to do largely and at once. 

From the time of the issue of the Chemistry he had 
borne a twofold responsibility, either of which seemed too 
great for one of delicate constitution, who had passed 
through the special strain of severe war experience, its 
following critical illness, and a later unsparing appHcation 
in the schoolroom at Newark and to other and varied 
work. But prior to his decision in 1872 he had found 
it impossible voluntarily to bid farewell to the personal 
associations of his beloved profession. 

He had, besides, many objections outside his prefer- 
ences to overcome. The Elmira Board of Education was 
increasingly loath to part with him, deeply feeling the value 
of his rapidly extending fame and his peculiar power as 
a guide to the young. They offered him generous relief 
from the daily routine of class-work if he would but retain 
his office and the general over-sight of the Academy. 
They granted him leave of absence for his first European 
tour, which became necessary to his health and as an 
intellectual aid in his work of authorship. They gave 
as much increase of salary as they could afford and 
sought earnestly to continue the connection between him 
and the school. 

On the other hand, the publishing house argued that 
he had become too important to the whole country to 
confine himself to a labor for the benefit of a locality, 
while to continue in two lines of work would inevitably 
soon incapacitate him for either, by reason of the over- 
taxation it would entail. 

It was only after prolonged and conscientious delibera- 
tion that the matter was finally settled. In discussing 

91 



Joel Dorman Steele 

it by correspondence with his publisher, Dr. Steele 
wrote : 

" Now, then, I feel like this: It may not be best for me to 
disconnect myself from school permanently. I am happier 
doing the good I can there ; I exert a personal influence ; 
I can gain fresh experiences, try new plans and judge of 
their practicality and usefulness. I fear I may lose the 
power of adaptability to children's minds if I stay out 
of class-work. . . . That great question of usefulness con- 
stantly comes in with the lesser ones of health and hap- 
piness. I have thought over it and prayed over it — yet 
cannot decide." 

It is likely that a plain, practical and fatherly letter 
from the head of the publishing house, which came while 
an alarming physical collapse threatened him, was the 
final and controlling influence which decided Dr. Steele 
to devote himself entirely to authorship. 

This letter, which impartially stated the pros and cons 
of the situation, urged the hesitating teacher to decide 
not for himself, but as he would advise decision in a 
friend similarly placed. The impersonal view seems 
to have successfully reinforced other arguments, and 
settled a course which would lessen the variety of his 
tasks, and leave him to the uninterrupted pursuit of 
book-making. He withdrew from the Academy in 
1872. 

The instant approval of the public, won by the Chem- 
istry, grew with each new volume, and never failed to 
greet substantially every fresh undertaking. Witness 
such messages as these, which constantly brought encour- 
agement from the publishers : 

Jan. 14, 1S71 : "They have out our first fifteen hundred 
Geologies. All the books are selling splendidly." 

92 



The Making of Books 

Near the same date : " Boston has adopted Steele's Philos- 
ophy and Geology. Hip ! Hip ! ! " 

Later in the same year : 

" I have just returned from my four thousand mile trip 
and saw ' Steele's Fourteen Weeks ' in gorgeous array in 
many booksellers' shops. Also heard some noise about a 
Zoology." 

Their manager wrote from Chicago : 

*' The Geology is a jewel. I often think how lucky it is 
iox yon that I did not offer you a thousand or fifteen hun- 
dred dollars for half copyright in your scientific series, at the 
time 1 was negotiating with our folks to publish your Chemis- 
try. All you have to do now, Professor, is to finish your 
Physiology and History, write a Science of Common Things 
and call it an Epitome of Science — then take your faithful 
and darling wife and travel in Europe." 

Little could any one foresee how far short of all he had 
to do was this pleasant programme, nor what tremendous 
toil was before him through the very victories which it was 
expected would bring him leisure. 



93 



CHAPTER X 

THE HISTORIES 

IT is almost literal truth to say that Dr. Steele awoke 
to find himself an historian. Nor did he wake with- 
out calling. For, of himself, his eyes were not opened 
to see his ability as a story-teller who could set down 
the events of national growth with a skill that would 
win universal attention. 

It was at the proposal of his publishers that he was 
induced to begin a work which he was singularly reluc- 
tant to undertake. He was fond of American history, 
and for his own pleasure had taught it both in Newark 
and Elmira, where, by his sparkling anecdote and patri- 
otic fervor he had so increased the size of his classes 
that they outgrew the schoolroom and had to be divided 
into two sections. His native originality had shown itself 
in historical as well as in scientific methods, but the 
sciences were always his fiivorites, and he had never 
thought of writing an historical text-book. 

But, in 1870, on the death of Mrs. Emma Hart 
Willard, her publishers, in a friendly letter, spoke 
of the need of something in a United States history, 
which would be fresh and fascinating in treatment, 
and declared, " We think you could give us just the 
book." 

To this proposal. Dr. Steele did not at once accede. 
He had been peculiarly successful in his scientific work, 

94 



The Histories 

but this was a new field in authorship, and would involve 
added labor — for he well knew that the old and tried 
path in science would allure him still. All his objections, 
however, were humorously met and parried by the pub- 
lishers, who at this point made the first suggestion as 
to retirement from the Elmira Academy. As already 
related, this suggestion was slowly acted upon, though 
accompanied by a proposition to swell the text-book 
series to sixteen volumes, and a financial offer the magni- 
tude of which Dr. Steele could not have imagined for 
himself two years before. 

"This is just to give you confidence," wrote his pub- 
lisher friend, " and we do not consider the act uncom- 
monly liberal, for the book will make it — and more. 
Don't thank us ! If you accept — which you tniist, for 
we won't take * no ' — we will draw up a little agreement 
and victory is ours." 

This was written in August, 1S70, and by September 
fourteen an arrangement was made with the Academy, 
whereby he was enabled to devote more time to his books, 
and to begin his new venture. The outcome was hailed 
with joy by the publishers, which they thus voiced : 

"The die is cast! The Rubicon is crossed! History is 
the book and expedition is the word. Make us a perfectly 
stunning book, now, Professor, in your own charming narra- 
tive and never fear but we shall like your style. Be just 
yourself — natural — what you are in your other books." 

As one reads the brisk correspondence between the 
two, who had now grown to be fast friends, it is hard to 
know which to admire most — the sagacious and inspir- 
ing confidence of the publisher or the responsive alacrity 
of the author. And it is harder to know which looked 

95 



Joel Dorman Steele 

to the end with more eagerness. But it is plain that the 
full assurance of success was the prescience of him who 
cheered the heavy toil of the other by buoyant words of 
hearty faith. 

Dr, Steele was unwilling to be known as author of the 
new book. He feared schoolmen might look askance at 
history from the pen of a scientist. Or, should the rep- 
utation of the science books float his history, and the 
latter lack staying powers, he feared the sciences might 
suffer from the association. 

Entertaining devices of pseudonym were discussed, 
therefore, among others a combination of initials and 
names made up from the cognomens of Dr. Steele and 
General Barnes. This was contrived by the latter, who 
declared it would please him immensely : " I am a sort 
of papa to this venture, anyway, and will never disown 
the child. Besides, it is going to be yonx great book." 

It was at last decided that it should be published 
simply as " Barnes' Brief History of the United States," 
a decision which gave rise to the foUowhig paragraph 
in a letter to Dr. Steele from General Barnes, October, 
1885: 

" I begin to despair of pleasing the world at large and 
every individual in it with anydiing we can do. This morn- 
ing comes a crank who praises the ' Brief U. S.' in every 
respect except as to the matter of title, and says he will 
never allow it in his school while we print ' Barnes' ' with an 
apostrophe after the ' s.' Ifancy that ! " 

While the work of the history manuscript went bravely 
on, scores of letters passed between New York and El- 
mira, those signed "A. C. B." showing intense expec- 
tation. 

96 



The Histories 

Oct. 1870: "Let us have three hundred pages, as inter- 
esting as you know how, and we will sell one hundred thou- 
sand per annum for you." This promise was more than 
fulfilled. 

Nov. 15, 1870: " Your letter last received makes me feel 
real good — ■ as the girls say. That idea of topical para- 
graphs is as smart as they make 'em. I must say you are 
an unadulterated genius. Come down to the city as soon as 
you are ready and let us talk it over — a big palaver." 

The history grew in beauty of plan and execution. In 
January, 187 1, the author wrote Mrs. Steele: 

" I have a new idea. It is to precede each epoch by a 
colored, two-page map containing all the places mentioned 
in the epoch, and follow this — before the text begins — with 
a page of questions marked ' Geography of the Epoch,' thus 
making the pupil acquainted with the geography of all the 
places mentioned. How do you like the plan ? " 

This idea was carried out, and when, later, he wrote 
to the publishers his satisfaction with the specimen 
map pages sent him, General Barnes wrote thus : 

"Yes, the maps are good — but not too good for such 
text. It grows on me every time I read it. If here are not 
the elements of success I have had enough of the book 
business." 

Other letters from the publishing friend contained such 
congratulatory sentences as these : 

June, 1871 : " Every one who has seen the book praises it 
without reserve. It will be the greatest yet — mark me / " 

July 10, '71: "First blood for the 'Brief.' Texas has 
adopted it for all her common schools — exclusive — also the 
Sciences complete ! " 

Sept. 11:" Seventy-five hundred histories printed, and 
the demand so great that the presses are again set going for 



97 



Joel Dorman Steele 



Dec. i: "It won't discourage you — will it? — to learn 
that twenty thousand histories are almost gone in six 
months ? " 

Dec. 29 : " The Science sales this month have increased 
thirty per cent over 1870 and History foots up seventeen 
hundred volumes. Try to bear up." 

Aug., 1872: "You are already beyond the need of hard 
work for the rest of your life." This at the age of thirty-six, 
after six years of authorship. 

But unrelenting hard work still beckoned him. Zo- 
ology followed in 1872, then history, and history, and 
always more history. The " History of France " and 
" Popular History of the United States " were copyrighted 
in 1875. To the latter was added the " New Administra- 
tion" in 1878. In 1879, came "Excelsior Studies in 
United States History " and first revision of the " Brief," 
to which the " New Administration " was added in 18S0. 
In 1881, " History of Ancient Peoples " was copyrighted, 
and "Mediaeval and Modern Peoples " in 1883. 

Meantime, Dr. Steele tried to rest. As soon as the 
"Brief" was over, in 187 1, he left for Saratoga — his 
favorite outing place in summer. But the voice of 
appeal reached him here. 

" I hate awfully," wrote General Barnes, July 6, " to dis- 
turb your oiiiim diggin'-iaters, at Temple Grove House, 
with any other tables than those on which you take your 
daily rations, but I must consult you about these tables of 
statistics." 

In July, 1883, again seeking rest at the same place, 
Dr. Steele wrote his wife : 

" I am greatly enjoying everything. The air is so quiet, 
pure, and sweet, yet so full of music and song. It is delight 



The Histories 

to sit at my open window and listen and feel it all. If you 
were only here ! . . . I am trying to finish this press of busi- 
ness, for teachers are calling loudly for the double-barrelled 
history." 

This was the " General History," a union in one vol- 
ume of the Ancient, Mediaeval, and Modern Peoples. 

In 1883 came the "History of Greece," with select 
readings (added by an outsider) ; in 1885 the "History 
of Rome," with select readings by Mrs. Steele; and the 
second revision of the "United States History." Sand- 
wiched between all this historical work were the con- 
tinued volumes of Sciences. 

Not until after Dr. Steele's death was his name put 
upon the title-pages of any of the histories, though the 
advisability often came up and his friends urged it. But 
he stoutly refused his own name unless Mrs. Steele's was 
coupled with it, a condition opposed by the publishing 
house lest such tardy announcement of joint authorship 
might be seized by critics to Dr. Steele's disadvantage, 
his direct connection with the " Barnes' Histories " having 
already become an open secret. Owing to such difficul- 
ties, Dr. Steele made no formal acknowledgment of his 
historical work further than signing the preface of the 
1885 edition of the United States History with his ini- 
tials, and the insertion of Mrs. Steele's name in the pre- 
face to the " General History." 

From the first of the book work, as Dr. Steele has 
so touchingly recorded in his autobiography, Mrs. Steele 
was the amanuensis, searcher of references, and ready 
critic, aiding her husband materially in the Science series. 
And after history was added to his labor she not only 
remained his assistant as before, but became the success- 
ful originator of text. 



Joel Dorman Steele 

She had a particular ability in ancient and mediaeval 
history, her fondness for which had been in childhood 
judiciously fostered by her father, from whom it was 
inherited. " I have often," said Mrs. Steele to a friend, 
" blessed the fatherly wisdom that gave me a happy 
foundation on which to build an education." 

As early as 1870, allusions began to appear in letters 
from the publishing house to Dr. Steele, recognizing 
the efficiency of his wife's assistance. A letter of that 
year from General Barnes contains this comment : 

" I am glad to know that Mrs. Steele is at the good work. 
That will make it S. T. i87o X, — sure ! " 

Feb. 27, 1871 : " I missed Mrs. Steele's familiar hand- 
writing. My regards to her, please, and tell her I consider 
her a very important partner in our joint authorship." 

March 10, 1886: " A good Primer of Health is the first 
necessity. This may bother more than you think, for it 
will require writing with a choice of words, to the limitations 
of which you are entirely unaccustomed. I really think you 
will find Mrs. Steele better adapted to it than yourself." 

In 1879 Mrs. Steele went to Watertown to write, and 
the daily letters of her husband contain constant allusion 
to her work : 

November 25 : " Your manuscript is grand. I congratu- 
late you on being done with Greece, as I suppose you are 
ere this, and that you have descended on Rome. Your plan 
is so straightforward and the material so well in hand that 
I expect you will advance rapidly and easily." 

November 26 : " Yours with proof came last night. 

Miss is loud in her praise of this work. She says she 

reads ahead and forgets to copy — quite a novelty for her. 
You know she generally copies mechanically, with little or 
no idea of the import of what she is transcribing." 

November 30 : " Do not condense so as to leave out the 
100 



The Histories 

interesting and concrete; abstractions and theories may go 
to the dogs by preference. 1 am glad you are getting on 
so famously. Literature is the big job, of course, though 
Monuments and Arts will be longest, I think. It will be 
heavy, but I am sure you will get through the amount 
planned for the coming week." 

December 4 : " The last instalment is ' just splendid ! ' 
Don't fret about the quality of your work. It is in some 
respects the best you have done, and has a spontaneity 
about it that is exhilarating." 

In April 1873 Dr. and Mrs. Steele made their second 
visit to Europe, this time for study in preparation for 
historical work, spending much time in England, Ger- 
many, and France, with histories of those countries in 
view. General Barnes and family were also abroad. 
From London Dr. Steele wrote General Barnes, August 
4, 1873: 

" I spend a larger part of the days in the Museum read- 
ing room. I am now getting the 'hang of things.' I have 
found an old friend here of four years' experience in the 
Museum on historical subjects. He says I have already 
accumulated as much material as he had at the end of his 
first year. 

" I have decided to go over the four histories, French, 
German, English, and General, mapping out the whole 
field by writing a brief outline, and sorting the data for each. 
This will give definiteness to the entire series and prevent 
repetitions and misplacements. Besides, the careful study 
and the comparisons thus made will give me a view of the 
subjects from every possible standpoint and insure perfect 
accuracy. This work may save me from statements or 
celoring which I might hereafter regret, and I can later take 
up any one of the series and work it out with confidence. 

" I am exceedingly anxious to bring out an English 
history very soon. My wife is thoroughly informed and all 

lOI 



Joel Dorman Steele 



aflame on the topic — indeed wants to take it herself. 
English history is more vivid to me than I ever supposed 
it could be. The book must come ere long." 

There was much talk all summer about a meeting of 
the friends — author and publisher — and their families, 
at some place on the continent, the time postponed by 
Dr. and Mrs. Steele, on account of their work, until 
September i, on which date Dr. Steele wrote: 

" We have concluded to go across the Channel to-morrow, 
if the weather is pleasant, and wait at Paris your arrival 
from Copenhagen. I shall abandon myself to French his- 
tory while on the spot where such stirring events transpired. 
An immense amount of reading and study is still requisite 
to fit me for this work, and I shall devote the entire year to 
searching for allied facts in European history and in culti- 
vating a historical way of thinking." 

The two families met at Paris and lived for a time at 
a pension, " No. 50 Rue Jacob," on the left bank of 
the Seine, — "a neat, comfortable place," wrote Dr. 
Steele, " not aristocratic but quite propre and with an 
agreeable landlord, who has enjoyed an extensive 
patronage from Americans — many of them scholarly 
people." This meeting and tarrying together of the 
two families determined the fact that neither the Eng- 
lish nor German histories were ever finished. At Paris 
the French history was planned by Dr. and Mrs. Steele, 
who afterward pushed it to completion. The Ger- 
man history was also begun, but laid aside for other 
pressing work, at the end of a hundred pages or so of 
manuscript. The English history, for which both were 
so richly prepared and which they eagerly hoped to write, 
was well under way at the time of Dr. Steele's death. 



The Histories 

This event so prostrated Mrs. Steele that she was utterly 
unfitted for literary activity for several years. She then 
found herself absorbed in revisions and in carrying out 
the philanthropic plans of her husband, and English 
history was finally abandoned. 

It will be seen that Dr. Steele by no means depended 
solely on his fluent, captivating style, but that he spent 
years of study and travel in pursuit of proper equipment. 
Neither was he sparing of expense. Before the tour 
abroad in 1873 he wrote: 

" German history will cost me about two thousand dollars 
more, written in Germany, still I wish to make the best 
book I can." 

He made the best books he could. The reward for 
their high quality was perhaps the largest response a 
nation of schools ever made to the work of one 
man. October 12, 1883, the same year in which it was 
copyrighted, the publishers wrote of the " History of 
Greece " : 

"The sale of that book is something remarkable — un- 
precedented in our experience. One hundred thousand 
copies are gone already ; five thousand are on the press ; 
orders to-day, one thousand. To-day and to-morrow we 
shall be without books." 

April 20, 1886, Dr. Steele was advised that more than 
one hundred and fifty thousand copies of the " Brief 
United States " had been sold that year, and that fifty 
thousand more would be sold by September. From 
October 1885 to October 1886 two hundred thousand 
copies were distributed. 

After the formation of the American Book Company, 
103 



Joel Dorman Steele 

in 1S90, the question of placing Dr. Steele's name on 
the title-pages of the histories was again discussed. In 
1892 Mrs. Steele revised the " General History," a book 
in which the sections on Civilization, which form a large 
part of the text, are entirely her own, the political his- 
tory and general plan of the work being Dr. Steele's. 
The name of Mrs. Steele, which had been mentioned in 
the prefoce when this book first appeared, was now com- 
bined with her husband's in their proper place, and soon 
afterward the two names appeared on the title-pages of 
the other histories. 



104 



CHAPTER XI 

THE CRITICS 

THERE is preserved an old scrap-book made by 
Dr. Steele which is a striking illustration of the 
impartiality with which he considered approval and dis- 
approval. Here, alongside the high encomiums of edu- 
cators and reviewers, are found the sharpest antagonistic 
comments. He seems to have welcomed every adverse 
opinion if it pointed to the possibihty of greater 
accuracy. It was only the mean aspersion, animated by 
inconsistency and unfair opposition, that roused his 
combativeness. 

He was sensitive to both praise and blame — but not 
unduly. His elation was that of one who likes both to 
speak and to hear a whole-souled, appreciative word ; 
his annoyance that of the thorough-going workman who 
aims to bring his production above the charge of un- 
worthiness and fallacy. He never defended himself 
from criticism until he had examined its cause suffi- 
ciently to know whether or not it was well founded. 
And he was active in detecting his own mistakes. 

From New York, September 6, 1868, he wrote Mrs. 
Steele : 

" I find my books selling so well that I have ventured 
to name a series of corrections which have occurred to 
me. ... I forwarded you an astronomy yesterday. I 
want you to read \\.for mistakes and let me know if you find 
any. I want to eliminate all errors at once." 
105 



Joel Dorman Steele 

His resolution to investigate the basis of every ad- 
verse comment made him a vast deal of labor. Fair 
himself to competitors, he did not at first suspect that 
many censuring words might arise from envy. His 
publishers, who better knew how to estimate such 
attacks, wrote April 26, 1870 : " Don't worry over those 
people who endeavor to stem the overwhelming tide 
that has risen in your favor. It will only advertise you." 
This indeed proved to be the case. 

Later, on Dr. Steele's proposing to place the books, 
by further revision, beyond the reach of fault-finders, 
his philosophical friend wrote : 

" You largely overestimate the importance of the attacks 
on your books. Pray do not permit these tokens and at- 
tendants of success to disturb your equanimity for a moment. 
Any slight defects can well wait time. Only detractors can 
find fault at any rate. I am sure there has been liberal 
pruning and splicing. Don't fancy that, at the best, any 
text-book can be received by the world exactly as if it were, 
like Caesar's wife, sans reproche. Perhaps you have heard 
of this comparison before ! " 

The peculiarity of a certain class of criticism often 
furnished both author and publisher much amusement. 

" The principal of Academy," writes Dr. Steele, 

" has written me a letter criticising my ' Astronomy ' 
severely. Yet he says it is the pleasantest book he has 
ever read and that he will probably adopt it." 

"Our friend in Texas," wrote Mr. Barnes, June 1882, 
"who took occasion to speak so slightingly of your Sciences, 
when called upon to give reasons for such sweeping charges 
gracefully apologized, saying it was a mistake ever to have 
made them." 

106 



The Critics 

One author who had harshly discriminated against 
the Steele Sciences, offered in 1869, tempted perhaps 
by the rumor of royalties, to combine with Dr. Steele 
in a new book. Mr. Alfred Barnes forwarded this whole- 
some counsel : 

" We would advise you not to think of such a thing as 

collaborating with . Such a proposition from him is a 

curious commentary on his criticism upon your books. 
You seem to be extensively in the coals-of-fire business." 

The replies of Dr. Steele to his censors were never 
hasty or ill-advised, but they were often highly enter- 
taining as clever retorts. Neither had he any petty 
satisfaction in weak points displayed by rivals. Of one 
who had dealt less good-naturedly with him, he wrote : 

" I find a number of mistakes in the new science book of 
. One especially pleases me. It is an entire state- 
ment, copied verbatim from the first edition of my book 
before the corrections made long ago. Evidently this writer 
used an early edition of Steele, and it is a rich joke on him." 

Many labored articles, as pedantic as the substitutes 
their writers would have made, were penned for the 
purpose of showing a misguided public how inadequate 
were the books it was purchasing. Yet the proud honor 
of election to a fellowship in the Geological Society of 
London, England, was in recognition of the very ex- 
cellence of presentation not understood by his oppo- 
nents, who always pointed out the fact that he had 
failed to produce a certain sort of book — the precise 
sort he had diligently sought to supplant, as deadly to 
the prosperity of fundamental scientific study. 

As he once said : " There is a vast difference between 
' Fourteen Weeks in Science ' and ' Science in Fourteen 
107 



Joel Dorman Steele 

Weeks.' " However, there were many who could never 
comprehend that his eager thought was to give to those 
who had but fourteen weeks a year in school, a profit- 
able course for limited study, and to those who had 
more time, a good foundation for future progress. He 
once mildly assured a contemptuous assailant, that the 
scientific books did not represent all he knew, but only 
all he had thought advisable to set before the class of 
students for whom they were prepared. 

*' Specialists," said the New England Educational Jour- 
nal, " may find fault with his scientific works and say they 
are too superficial, but the works were not written for them 
— they were prepared for the untrained pupil, who has never 
yet learned that there are beauty, wisdom, and fascination in 
science. . . . Many a one now working as a specialist in 
some branch of science had his attention first drawn and his 
enthusiasm aroused by Dr. Steele." 

The last assertion is remarkably verified by extracts 
from two letters voluntarily sent to Mrs. Steele, the first 
in 1886, the other some years later. The former was 
from Marion, Alabama : 

" I became acquainted with Dr. Steele's books as a boy, 
struggling to obtain an education, especially its elements, by 
personal effort, and with no aid except a few books, among 
which were Dr. Steele's ' Astronomy ' and ' Natural Philoso- 
phy.' I recall them now as the most attractive companions 
I had in those gloomy days, brightened now and then only 
by the fires of ambition. Those books led me on by hand- 
ling hard topics in an easy, captivating manner, and they 
did the work for me. 

" To hundreds of young men the death of Dr. Steele is 
a personal loss. The nation has greater cause to mourn 
for him than for a statesman." 
108 



The Critics 

The writer of the other letter is a man of professional 
and scientific repute in Georgia : 

"About thirteen years since," he said, "I was sixteen, 
preparing for college with no definite idea of what I would 
do when I became a man. 1 was groping about in the dark 
for some object or profession to follow as a life-work. My 
father, a Yale graduate, was a sugar planter and wanted me 
to take the plantation. But for this I had no taste and was 
completely at sea until I began the study of Fourteen 
Weeks in Chemistry. After completing that, my mind was 
made up. The charming style of the book had fascinated 
me with science and I determined to study it further. This 
I did, taking my degree at the Johns Hopkins University. 

" In scientific thought and training Dr. Steele was the 
author of my faith. It was he who led the aimless boy into 
the glorious realm of science, through paths that increased 
his love for nature's God." 

An old teacher thus summed up the merits of the 
Steele Sciences : " They do interest children and they 
do produce results ; and we take it that covers the ground 
pretty well." 

As to their literary value, thousands of encomiums 
have been written. Hyland Kirke said that many pas- 
sages were "gems of the first water." Two are here 
given as illustrations of his style. The first is taken from 
the " Physics " : 

" Actual energy is also styled dynamic or kinetic energy, 
and potential is termed static energy. In mechanics, kinetic 
energy is called vis viva (=iw7/^), or striking force. Wind 
a watch, and by a few moments of labor you condense in 
the spring a potential energy, which is doled out for twenty- 
four hours in the dynamic energy of the wheels and hands. 
Draw a violin bow, and the potential energy of the arm is 
stored up in the stretched cord. Lift a pendulum, and you 
109 



Joel Dorman Steele 

thereby give the weight potential energy ; let it fall, and 
the potential changes gradually to dynamic. . . . Potential 
energy is one that is concealed, lying in wait and ready to 
burst forth on the instant. It is a loaded gun prepared for 
the arm of the marksman. It is a river trembling on the 
brink of a precipice, about to take the fearful leap. It is a 
weight wound up and held against the tug of gravity. It is 
the engine on the track with the steam hissing from every 
crevice. It is the drop of water with a thunderbolt hidden 
within its crystal walls. On the contrary, dynamic energy 
is in full view, in actual operation. The bullet is speeding 
to the mark ; the river is tumbling ; the weight is falling ; 
the engine is flying over the rails ; and the bolt is flashing 
across the sky. It is heat radiating from our fires; elec- 
tricity flashing our messages over the continent ; and gravity 
drawing bodies headlong to the earth." 

The second is from the " Barnes' Brief History of the 
United States " : 

" Though the nation was still agitated by political strife 
— the ground-swell, as it were, of the recent terrible storm, 
the country was rapidly taking on the appearance and 
ways of peace. The South was slowly adjusting herself to 
the novel conditions of free labor. The soldiers retained 
somewhat their martial air ; but ' blue-coats ' and ' gray- 
coats ' were everywhere to be seen engaged in quiet avo- 
cations. The ravages of war were fast disappearing. 
Nature had already sown grass and quick-growing plants on 
the battle-fields where contending armies had struggled. 

' There were domes of white blossoms where swelled the white tent ; 
There were plows in the track where the war wagons went ; 
There were songs where they lifted up Rachel's lament.' — B. F. Taylor. 

Strangely symbolical of the new era of growth which had 
dawned on the nation, a wanderer over the cannon-ploughed 
slope of Cemetery Ridge found a broken drum, in which a 
swarm of bees were building their comb and storing honey 
no 



The Critics 

gathered from the flowers growing on that soil so rich 
with Union and Confederate blood." 

The "wanderer" was Dr. Steele himself. 

" I could wish," wrote a prominent educator in 1885, 
" that you might go through every department of human 
knowledge, setting in order all the things to be studied. 
You have, however, earned a rest from toil, and will live to 
see your work carried on by other hands after your own 
plan." 

He did not live to see it, but many who read the 
educational signs of the times know well that great 
numbers of text-book makers have forsaken the need- 
less weariness of old ways, because he dared to go 
before and make a better one. And many a good 
science book of the grade of his own has been success- 
ful, because it has exhibited that fine perception of 
needs, that happy presentation of facts, first conspicu- 
ous in the Steele books and long peculiar to them. 

It is interesting to know that the only assault which 
promised any danger to his popularity, attained no 
magnitude until 1886, and after the death of Dr. Steele. 
It was made on the "United States History." 

This book had, from year to year, since its issue in 
1872, enjoyed a constantly wider favor, and the pub- 
lishers concluded that the increasing demand warranted 
a new dress. It was accordingly reset in new type with 
a wealth of pictorial illustration, and became, probably, 
the most artistic school book that had ever appeared in 
America. Orders poured in from every state in the 
Union, swelling the sales to tremendous proportions. 

Suddenly anonymous circulars, entitled, " Shall our 
Boys and Girls be taught that Rebellion is Honor- 
III 



Joel Dorman Steele 

able ? " were sent broadcast, denouncing the history as 
a " Rebel book." These circulars appeared everywhere, 
and were systematically reviewed in the newspapers, 
attracting great attention. The charges were finally 
pushed so far that the Grand Army Posts began to 
make critical examinations of the work. In two towns, 
— Newark, New Jersey, and Saratoga, New York, — 
resolutions were passed by the Posts, disapproving the 
cordiality with which Dr. Steele had acknowledged the 
bravery of the Southern soldiers and leaders, and coun- 
selling their members not to patronize schools in which 
it was taught. 

Much publicity was given to these resolutions by 
those who hoped to benefit from any antagonisms they 
might engender. Misled Northern veterans, brought 
to believe there was partiality, rather than even-handed 
justice, intended toward the soldiers of the South, wrote 
some hot opinions with the headlong abandon of their 
old, fighting spirit. At last, the opposition to the book 
took on serious proportions. 

However, there was safety for the history in the fact 
that men of breadth and balance are, after all, the men 
who make final decisions. And many such were among 
those who still survived the Civil War. Soon from this 
class arose protests against the rash accusations of the 
unthinking — led by the designing — and everywhere 
solid and influential men began to defend the memory 
of the maligned author. 

The championship of his publishers also did much 
to counteract the effect of unjust aspersions. Their 
alacrity had in it a fire of energy born of personal 
love for Dr. Steele and a perfect knowledge of his 
equitable spirit. For this reason it had an efficacy 

112 



The Critics 

which business policy alone could never possess. And 
added to the refutations of brother-soldier, friend and 
publisher was the impassioned resolve of Mrs, Steele 
that nothing should prevail against the truth. 

It would be unprofitable to give the details of this 
contest, long since settled by righteous judgment. But 
it was fought out — it did not die out. Every par- 
ticular statement called in question was proven to be 
justified by quotations from Abraham Lincoln, General 
Grant, Horace Greeley, James G. Blaine, and other 
equally unassailable authorities. It was shown, too, that 
other reliable historians had never been challenged for 
certain identical narrations which were criticised in Dr. 
Steele. That these statements did not reflect on national 
honor everybody now knows. 

A reward was offered for the identification of the 
author of these distributed circulars, but beyond a moral 
certainty there was no detection. 

One of the warmest protestations of confidence in 
Dr. Steele's true patriotism was dated at Elmira, Oc- 
tober 6, 1886, and signed by a number of his towns- 
people, members of the Grand Army. It was as fol- 
lows : 

" Understanding that, for purposes best known to them- 
selves, certain parties are representing that the author of 
' The Barnes Brief History ' was not a loyal patriot and that 
his book was written to pander to Southern sentiment, we, 
his fellow-townsmen and members of the Grand Army of 
the Republic, take pleasure in testifying to his staunch and 
unswerving patriotism and his undoubted devotion to the 
Union. As a volunteer soldier he fought bravely and won 
the honorable scars of battle ; as a citizen he has been ever 
esteemed as an ardent lover of our united land, and a con- 
scientious worker for its best interests. We should feel no 
8 113 



Joel Dorman Steele 

hesitation in putting into the hands of our children any book 
of which he was the author." 

This was signed by Hon. Seymour Dexter, then judge 
of Chemung County ; Thomas K. Beecher, D. D., 
Elmira's most famous clergyman, the brother of Henry 
Ward Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe ; by United 
States Commissioner John T. Davidson, Judge Gabriel 
L. Smith, General E. O. Beers, and many equally reliable 
and distinguished veterans. 

All over the country were found clear-headed Grand 
Army men who denounced the injustice of the charge, 
and the Grand Army's own organ, " The National 
Tribune," had early indorsed the book. 

D. R. Lowell, Post Chaplain in Chief, wrote from 
Fort Riley, Kansas : 

" I have studied the history with the greatest care and 
deepest interest because some have criticised it as lack- 
ing loyalty to the North. It is certainly not a spread-eagle 
oration. That is one reason why it commends itself to me. 
History is not statements of partisan questions or debated 
incidents, but is simple, plain, unpartisan statements of 
facts. I have only admiration for Dr. Steele's calm, fair 
recital — especially of the story of the Civil War. No 
student can read this book without having his pride in his 
flag and country largely increased." 

A. S. Weissert, Commander-in-chief of the Grand 
Army, declared : "The book is the best of the kind in use 
in the schools of the country. The terse, vigorous Eng- 
lish in which the salient facts of our Nation are told, is 
unequalled." 

It seems very strange that this book should also have 
been objected to in the South. Rev. J. William Jones, 
secretary of the Southern Historical Society, wrote an 
114 



The Critics 

article upon it for the " Virginia Educational Journal," 
charging it with most unfair discrimination against the 
South. Sectional sensitiveness was at that time ex- 
tremely alert. One Union veteran who sternly criticised 
the book, afterward explained that his reasons for it 
were, that he was of the Army of the Potomac, and in- 
ferred, from the praise of certain generals, that the author 
of "Barnes' Brief United States" must have belonged 
to the Army of the West. Thus was the conscientious 
and impartial historian criticised and blamed by the 
captious on all sides. 

But generally, east, west, north, and south, the sincere 
and just temper of his work was acknowledged. Hon. 
A. M. Keiley, city attorney, ex-mayor, and president 
of the School Board of Richmond, Va., wrote a full, 
excellent and fair review of the book, in which he ex- 
pressed a strong approval of it, and closed by saying : 

" Most important, the story is' fully and truthfully told. 
I do not mean that every fact is narrated as I would have 
narrated it, or that every figure will bear the test of final 
scrutiny from authoritative standards ; but I do mean to 
say that the book seems to me to be imbued by a candid, 
honest purpose to tell the truth in fact and form. 

" The events of the War of Secession form, of course, the 
ground of differences of opinion, and men on both sides will 
long dispute — perhaps forever — ^as to details. Even on 
the same side these differences exist. There will neces- 
sarily be honest differences of opinion among actors in our 
great struggle as to details of the campaigns and battles of 
the War. If so, how much more likely among writers of 
opposite parties in that struggle. Many volumes of official 
reports on both sides have been published since the War, 
and the official facts fail of harmony as signally as the 
unofficial. What, however, we have a right to expect is 

115 



Joel Dorman Steele 

a manifest effort to be fair, not only in the display of inde- 
pendent facts, but in the judgment of motive, in the degree 
of prominence to the several facts, in portrayal of character, 
in the story of final results; and if these are effected, the 
details of the campaigns and battles, unless grossly mis- 
stated, may, without damage to truth, be allowed a margin. 
"Therefore I say, that while this story is not told as I 
should have told it in every respect, I believe I could not 
have told it more fairly, and I know that others have not 
told it as fairly. Courage, skill, sincerity, devotion, win the 
author's recognition and praise wherever displayed ; and 
the narrative generally exhibits the temper of the judge, 
rarely, if ever, of the advocate. 1 do not think this can 
be affirmed of all of its competitors; and of none do I think 
it can be more fully affirmed." 

The final endorsement of educators was a national one. 
The whole country, which had so approved the Sciences, 
united in preference for the " History," no matter 
what other competitor appeared. Not a state in the 
union but has used it. The unanimity of choice proved 
a prevailing spirit, like that expressed by the publishing 
house in the closing words of its printed defence of Dr. 
Steele : 

" We think we have now shown that our history seeks to 
be impartial in its treatment of the Civil War ; that it recog- 
nizes valor and ability wherever shown, and never shrinks 
from stating important facts, whether they make for or 
against either the North or the South. It seems to us that 
this is the true spirit for a school history. Our children 
should not, in our opinion, be taught to cherish any sectional 
feeling, or to perpetuate any of the differences which have 
unhappily divided the fathers. Why can we not all, as 
Americans, take pride in American skill and bravery, 
whether shown by Northern or Southern soldiers .-* Let the 
youth of our land come together on the broad ground of 
ii6 



The Critics 

the Union, and, while studying its history, imbibe a national 
patriotism, learn to avoid the errors of the past, to cultivate 
its virtues, revere its heroes, and unitedly, North and South, 
East and West, build up its magnificent future." 

It was fourteen years after its first appearance that 
the history was called to pass through the ordeal of 
malignant attack. In the twenty-seventh year of its 
still robust life, the words of James Russell Lowell may 
well be quoted : 

" What a sense of security in an old book which time has 
criticised for us ! " 



117 



CHAPTER XII 

THE TRAVELLER 

SENTENCES here and there, in the early letters of 
Dr. Steele and his young wife, show how both 
enjoyed the modest outings they were able to get in 
vacation times, and how they talked of more ambitious 
possibilities in the future. In 1S63 he congratulated 
her — then with her father on a visit to Iowa and 
Michigan, on all she had seen through her opportuni- 
ties of travel. He mentioned especially the cities of 
Albany, New York, Washington, Detroit, Chicago, Du- 
buque, and expressed pleasure that she, although " a 
poor man's wife," was seeing a little of what they had 
dreamed and talked about together. He added of him- 
self: " I think I shall go to Sodus Bay some time this 
week. We are getting up a party for the trip. I learn 
the scenery is considered quite equal to the Thousand 
Islands." 

Even amid the distractions of his soldier life, he 
never wrote a letter that had not in it some touch of 
description which showed his keen and interested ob- 
servation of men high and low, of their manners, and 
of the country through which he was called to pass. 
Every change of scene was an open book, studied with 
delight or with grave contemplation. 

It was to recuperate his exhausted physical forces that 
Dr. Steele and his wife took their first tour abroad. The 
118 



The Traveller 

heavy task of the " United States History " left him much 
worn. In April, 1871, when the book was about to be 
issued, General Barnes wrote : 

" I am alarmed at your report of your health. We are 
all very anxious about you and not only permit — we insist 
on — -your discontinuing book work until your health is fully 
established. Get away from home and travel. An entire 
change of thought and scene is wliat you need." 

Again, .September : " This will never, never do, my friend. 
I am glad the history and all its worry are over. I guess 
you would better take six months for play. Never mind 
our business agreement. If this pressure breaks you down 
I shall never forgive myself." 

In January, 1872, the anxious friend wrote Mrs. Steele, 
urging her to co-operate with him in influencing the 
tired teacher and author to rest. Later in the same 
month, having meantime withdrawn from school work, 
Dr. Steele received the following : 

" As for mj plans, they are briefly these : Take that good 
little wife and start for Europe — instanter ! " 

That this advice was briskly followed, the following 
from " A. C. B." will show : 

Feb. 21, 1872 : " My dear Profkin, — By this time, or here- 
abouts, the raging ocean delivers you to the smiling land, 
and you are congratulating yourselves that your probation, 
as toilers of the sea, is nearly or quite accomplished. Per- 
haps, however, you would rather linger awhile yet upon the 
bounding billow. It may have its advantage since you are 
thinking about writing that Physiology. Surely the facili- 
ties for contemplating the fearful and wonderful processes 
of your own and others' ' innards ' must tempt you to re- 
main as long as possible — a martyr to science. What 
were the revelations of St. Martin's patent stomach com- 
pared to such phenomena!" 

119 



Joel Dorman Steele 

The tourists passed the winter months in France and 
Italy, the early summer in England and Scotland. 

" I remember " — Dr. Steele wrote a year later to General 
Barnes, then on the Continent — " how I rejoiced to get out 
of Italy and go into a civilized country — away from a 
nation of fleas, dirt, laziness and beggars. Yet those an- 
noyances are quickly forgot, and one thinks not of what 
Italy is but of what she was. In front of my bed hangs 
one of those huge photographs of the grand old Colosseum, 
and every morning, when my eyes first open, they catch a 
glimpse of the spot where I spent so many delightful hours 
while I was in Rome. At night we often place our lamp 
under the picture, and turning the light low we have the 
Colosseum by moonlight. It is a perfect reahzation of the 
scene — the arcades, the deep recesses lying in shade, 
the long lanes of light, the dim, mysterious softness, — all 
bring back the thought of the hour when I stood by the 
cross in the middle of the arena, spell-bound by the memo- 
ries of the place." 

It was after the return from Italy to England that 
the Doctor had the pleasure of examining the superb 
cabinets of minerals and precious stones owned by the 
Baroness Burdett-Coutts, and of being entertained by 
her. It came about in this way : 

Dr. and Mrs. Steele had been in Naples during the 
seismic agitation that preceded the great eruption of 
Vesuvius in 1872. In fact, they left the city only 
three hours before the outburst of lava that destroyed 
Torre del Greco, wiped the Hermitage out of existence, 
surrounded and smothered a party of English tourists, 
and terrified all Naples by its underground conspiracy 
with the nether world in general. 

Their ascent of the mountain, three days before, had 
been full of startling incident. Frequent mutterings 



The Traveller 

and several outbursts of stones, with a volume of sul- 
phuric gas which made breath a terror and sight an 
impossibility, had enlivened their upward struggle 
toward the new crater which had burst into being 
with the body, glow and heat of a hundred fiery furnaces. 
On one occasion the brigandish-looking Italians who 
balanced Mrs. Steele's chair on their shoulders — for 
there was no mountain railroad then — nearly spilled 
her out, and apologized by declaring that the mountain 
was "getting dangerous." 

As this assertion went before a demand for four bot- 
tles of Lachrimse Christi to stay their nerves, it was 
received as the usual chaff for tourists. So also were 
the asseverations next day of their guide to Pompeii, 
though the air was so filled with ashes that the horses 
would occasionally turn squarely around, to escape the 
driving ash-storm pouring down the volcanic summit, 
and the suffering riders bound their handkerchiefs over 
their eyes for hke protection. 

Their escort, a guide of thirty-five years' experience, 
said he had " never seen another day like that." But 
in their hearts the travellers had little faith in a courier's 
tale, and placidly believing old Vesuvius to be drawing 
his normal, everyday breath, insisted on proceeding. 
Afterward they learned how exceptional was their ex- 
perience, and how full of interest it was to those more 
familiarly acquainted than they with ordinary volcanic 
behavior. 

After the eruption, a philanthropic Englishman gave 
a lecture in London, describing the attendant phe- 
nomena and exhibiting specimens of the new and old 
lava streams. This was for the relief of homeless suf- 
ferers in Naples and the Vesuvian suburbs, toward which 



Joel Dorman Steele 

the Baroness donated one hundred pounds, while in 
return the lecturer presented her with the lava speci- 
mens. Dr. Tennant, the eminent English scientist, to 
whom Dr. Steele had taken a letter of introduction, 
had charge of the Burdett-Coutts fine collection of 
minerals and invited his American friend to accompany 
him in arranging the fresh acquisition. 

While the scientists were thus engaged the Baroness 
with a lady friend entered, and learning that Dr. Steele 
had left Naples on the day of the eruption asked for the 
story of his visit. When it was told, she assured him 
his account was much more philosophic and interesting 
than that of the lecturer, and she invited the two gentle- 
men into her private apartments for luncheon. 

The luncheon was according to the English custom 
of reserving all ceremony for the stately dinner and 
making the other meals delightfully informal. The 
four being seated, the head butler and three assistants 
removed the covers and at a sign from the hostess 
quietly retired. The gentlemen served the ladies, ris- 
ing and going to the sideboard for the fruits and sweets 
which completed the courses, the head butler removing 
the plates so unobtrusively that his entrance and exit 
were hardly noticed. 

No better promoter of genial and unrestrained con- 
versation could be devised, or one more conducive to 
the sparkling bans mots that form the brilliants in the 
circlet of intellectual table talk. The Baroness was in 
excellent spirits and highly complimentary toward her 
chance guest — " the entertaining American." Alto- 
gether the occasion was one of the most novel and 
interesting of many in which Dr. Steele participated in 
his journeys up and down the world. 

122 



The Traveller 

In July, 1872, the travellers returned, to spend some 
months at the home of Mrs. Steele's father in Water- 
town, where the " Physiology " was revised. Dr. Steele 
was much refreshed. He had found new strength for 
body and spirit in the lands that hold their riches in such 
alluring affluence of romantic and scholarly association. 

A part of the following winter they boarded in El- 
mira. In April, 1873, they sailed again, remaining 
abroad until July, 1874. They went first to Ireland 
and Scotland for several weeks, after which they studied 
in the British Museum in London until August, when 
they met General and Mrs. Barnes in Paris, as already 
recorded. In London they were for a time settled at 
Dulwich, near the Crystal Palace, in the family of the 
celebrated B. Waterhouse Hawkins, but later took rooms 
nearer the Museum. Dr. Steele's letters show this 
summer to have been an eventful one. Brief extracts 
are given, taken from his correspondence of that 
period. Though quoted without much connection, the 
unstudied paragraphs show the temper of the traveller 
and are a true reflection of the man who had a child's 
delight in the passing show, united to a well-poised 
man's sense of values. 

July 8, 1873 '• " Everybody has run wild over the Shah. 
No American furor I have ever witnessed can compare 
with the complete abajidon of the English pursuit of this 
Persian monarch. They have run after him like a crowd 
of boys after a hand-organ and monkey. There are, of 
course, political reasons. As for us, we have seen the old 
Mussulman from our hired window, until we are more than 
satisfied. Beside him were the Czarewitch, heir apparent 
to the Russian throne, and the Czarina, sister of their own 
beloved Princess, but the Persian barbarian monopolized all 
the British cheers." 

123 



Joel Dorman Steele 



July 10 : " We have spent a day at the Zoo and in driving 
with a party of American friends through the parks, and I 
have been a pilgrim to the tomb of Wesley in Bunhill 
Cemetery, where DeFoe, Dr. Watts, Bunyan, and other cel- 
ebrated dissenters lie buried." 

August 4 : " We made a delightful trip the other day to 
Stoke Poges to view the little old church, and the graveyard 
where Gray wrote his ' Elegy.' It is a delightfully rural and 
quaintly tumble-down affair. There is the very tombstone 
— that of his mother — on which Gray sat; so also did we, 
watching the venerable yew-tree's shade marking the curfew 
tower, and weaving the whole scene into the lines we duti- 
fully quoted with an awed delight. One sees it — almost feels 
it — ^as he did, and as he has immortalized it. 

" Then, after an hour of quiet contemplation, we rode 
to Burnham Beeches, where we enjoyed a bit of sylvan land- 
scape such as England alone can boast. The curious old 
beech-trees, gnarled and knotted, scraggy and hollow, huge 
beyond belief, are scattered over many an acre. I wish you 
could be with me some pleasant afternoon to lie in their dense 
shade, and talk of the olden time when Robin Hood could 
have made his bows here, and Cliarles II. might have found 
plenty of capital hidingplaces had he come this way. Such 
might-have-beens throng fast on the mind amid such sur- 
roundings." 

From August until the middle of December, Dr. and 
Mrs. Steele were in Paris working on the " French His- 
tory." They remained after the departure of General 
Barnes and his family, to whom they often wrote : 

To General Barnes. Nov. 2: "I met yesterday Made- 
moiselle Boucher, late instructress, governess, and purveyor 
of the Barnes family. She seemed in a happy frame of 
mind and meandered 'round from Rue Scribe to the Boule- 
vard. Saturday I spent a half hour on the Bourse. Out- 
side the battlefield I never heard an equal to its clamor. 
The violent screeching and everlasting wrangle filled the 
I 24 



The Traveller 

arched roof with waves of sound which seemed to accumu- 
late and rattle down in short, sharp pellets of noise, beating 
on the ear heavily and continuously." 

From Rue Jacob Mrs. Steele wrote Mrs. Barnes, Novem- 
ber lo: "It has been very cold here since you left, and it 
has exhausted the greater part of my energy to keep the fire 
prosperous. I have a severe cold and present an appearance 
truly foreign, with three shawls about me — one around my 
shoulders, one over my lap and one wound about my feet. 
M. Dandeville recommended mittens as a very comfortable 
thing in winter when one is sitting a good deal ! " 

Nov. 15, Dr. Steele wrote General Barnes: "The weather 
is very pleasant, clear, bright, but cold. We are trying to 
learn the construction and management of a French fire. It 
takes coal and wood, unfortunately, and the tuition therefore 
is expensive, in spite of great economy and the consumption 
of two candles every evening." 

Near this date he writes indignantly of a play pre- 
sented in Paris, called " Uncle Sam." Sensitive as he 
was to foreign opinion about American society, he re- 
sented its misrepresentation. 

" The play takes certain phases of American life that do 
not exist contemporaneously, and exaggerates them. The 
American heroine gives the hero a meeting, alone, in her 
private apartments. They go off together for two days. He 
makes love to her in French fashion, she sighs and blows 
like an asthmatic bellows. The rough Irishman who ma- 
nipulates votes, stalks into a lady's boudoir and talks politics. 
A gentleman-clergyman walks out with his spiritual-affinity 
wife, who is also the wife of another man who carries her 
bundles in the background. The whole thing is made up of 
American excrescences and brought out with French man- 
ners and style. We were much disgusted." 

His Americanism always expressed itself in disapproval 
of anything discreditable to his country and its people. 

125 



Joel Dorman Steele 

In Stuttgart, whither they went from Paris, he was much 
annoyed by the conduct of a woman who claimed first 
seat on all occasions as an American of exalted rank. 
She dressed loudly and had always a host of young Ger- 
man ofificers in her train. Her imprudences were com- 
mon comment, and, judging American wives in general 
by her, a German woman of social position remarked to 
Mrs. Steele, " Many of my friends, who know no other 
American women, always make the sign of the cross 
when they are mentioned." Dr. Steele wrote : " As an 

American, Mrs. is not a success. It is humiliating 

to think that foreigners are led to judge our wives and 
daughters by this woman, who is trailing an honorable 
American name in the mire. I hope she is only an ad- 
venturess and that her false pretensions may be exposed." 
The lady was afterward invited to leave the hotel. In 
Stuttgart, Dr. Steele studied German educational methods, 
about which he later wrote two or three excellent lectures 
and parlor talks. The " French History " also was ad- 
vanced there. He met many people of note. But he 
left without regret. 

January 21, 1874 : " The birds this morning sing under my 
window as sweetly as if it were April. Yet the air is unin- 
spiring and I long for the thrill and tingle of a good North- 
ern winter's day. I shall hail the summer and flit across the 
Atlantic joyfully. I have had enough of Germany, thank 
you ! Yankees are good enough for me ! " 

In February, Dr. and Mrs. Steele began a tour of six 
weeks through Dresden, Berlin, and other German cities. 
March 20 they reached London, again taking up work 
in the British Museum, making from thence some inter- 
esting excursions. 

126 



The Traveller 

April 22 : " On Tuesday next we start for Brighton, 
Isle of Wight, Salisbury, Tintern Abbey, Llangollen, 
Snowdon, Britannia Bridge, Dublin, and Killarney. We 
have high expectations of that to end off our European 
travels. 

" Saturday I was present at the obsequies of Livingstone, 
and saw his coffin lowered into the grave in the main aisle 
of Westminster Abbey. It was a magnificent, solemn 
spectacle. The greatest men of England were present, 
eager to do honor to the illustrious dead. The Queen in 
her gracious pleasure sanctioned the ceremony, by sending 
her empty carriage to follow the hearse. Our President came 
to New York to bury Greeley. But this act of the Queen 
was here considered a mighty condescension." 

May I : " At Brighton we spent a delightful half day in 
the great Aquarium. Then crossing to Ryde we took a 
forty-mile sweep on the Isle of Wight. The scenery along 
the coast is charming. The gashes in the hills, the beetling 
cliffs, the fresh foliage, the nestling bays, the clustering 
villages all make a rich variety. Back to the mainland, we 
took the train at Gosport and rode to Salisbury, wandered 
about its cathedral by moonlight and by daylight, and above 
all saw the bleak, desolate plains — and Stonehenge ! Words 
fail me here. I leave you to imagine it, and only say it 
satisfied. 

"This morning I 'spilled over' at Chester. The mag- 
nificent view from the Wyndecliffe, the picturesque banks of 
the Wye, and the famous old ruins of the ' Abbaye of Tin- 
turne ' — as the chronicles have it — were more than I could 
take in, and as if that were not enough, at noon we went to 
Newport, and all this afternoon we have been running up 
through Wales, skirting the most beautiful valleys and, every 
instant almost, catching glimpses of a wonderful prospect. I 
sat almost the whole time in a very quiver of delight, thrilled 
with the sense of beauty. To-morrow we go on to Ban- 
gor or, may be, shall cross over to Dublin. But then, the 
best of all to us is the thought that every mile takes us nearer 
home and friends." 

127 



Joel Dorman Steele 

His happiness in going home was unbounded. On 
board ship he expressed in a letter the pleasure he had 
found in his glorious season of travel, but added : 

" To me, however, the great joy lies in the fact that I am 
going home. I never loved my native land, her people, her 
institutions and her customs, more than I do now. My heart 
goes out in solemn thanksgiving for her social and religious 
freedom. I look eagerly to a land where the only nobility is 
that of manhood." 

He found the class distinctions of the old world ex- 
tremely distasteful. The only eminence to his Uking 
was that founded on those qualities which could com- 
mend themselves to a citizen of a republic. The pomp 
of social circumstance often aroused his disdain : 

"England likes proud footmen, royal fuss and feathers, 
and titled pomposities. To be born a Duke is here greater 
than to be an Agassiz, a Milton, a Cuvier. No money, no 
talent, no genius, no discovery, no invention, can place a man 
on a par with birth. Murchison, Livingstone, or Tyndall 
had no position beside a Duke or Marquis." 

In August, 1877, Mrs. Steele's father died, and soon 
afterward the third foreign tour was taken. They re- 
mained in London that winter and spent six or eight 
weeks in Paris after the opening of the Exposition. Just 
before their return to America in July, 1878, they en- 
joyed a charming visit of a week in a typical English 
home — that of Dr. Core in Manchester, who had been 
reviewing the manuscript for Dr. Steele's " Physics." Dr. 
Core had been recommended by Dr. Balfour Stewart, 
for whom he had performed the same service. While 
on this visit to Dr. and Mrs. Core, the Americans met 
128 



The Traveller 

Dr. Balfour Stewart and many other distinguished scien- 
tific men. 

In 1 88 1 Dr. Steele was again in Europe. July i6, 
he wrote : 

" London is full of Americans. I should judge there were 
five hundred at Spurgeon's on Sunday. He gave us a 
glorious sermon on ' Christ our Apple tree.' You remem- 
ber the verse in the Song of Solomon." 

July 28, 1 88 1. London : " Yesterday I attended the funeral 
of Dean Stanley. There were only eighteen hundred tickets 
issued, so 1 consider myself fortunate in receiving one. The 
ceremonies were very impressive and the attendance of high 
dignitaries was beyond anything I have ever witnessed. The 
Prince of Wales, several princes of the blood, Dukes, Bish- 
ops, Professors of high renown, and commoners known on 
both sides the Atlantic, thronged the Abbey. The untitled 
jostled against my Lord and Lady, and all sank to the level 
of vulgar sight-seers. The story of the scramble is long and 
I must leave it until I see you. It is hardly credible. 

" There were quite a number of Americans present. 
Mr. F sent some flowers. Mr. D secured a re- 
served seat, on the score, I believe, that he once gave the 
Dean some American bread and butter, and fed him with 
taffy when he was in New York. It is said the Dean was 
' sweet on New York ' after that. Perhaps it had an inter- 
national influence. 

" The Queen sent a wreath of roses with a line in her own 
hand. She writes legibly and neatly. 

" I need not give a description of the pageant, as you have 
already seen that in the New York papers. It is a constant 
wonder to me to find how fully our home papers keep up 
with the Enghsh news ; even the minor gossip and detail of 
the daily London press appear, summed up, somewhere ! " 

Paris, Aug. 23, 1881 : " I have just made the acquaintance 
of Mr. Eads, of Mississippi River fame. He is a very pleas- 
ant man indeed. I suppose you saw him on your trip to 
New Orleans. He has told me all about his ship-railroad 
9 129 



Joel Dorman Steele 



plans. They are wonderful — and, if any one can work 
them out, he is the man." 

August 26, 1 88 1 : " The streets of Paris are by no means 
so pleasant as when you and I trudged to and fro along the 
Seine and among the book stalls. . . . One very agreeable 
change has been made. Nearly all the omnibuses have been 
fitted up with winding stairs to ascend to the top, such as 
you remember were on the Sevres tram-car, on which we 
travelled one memorable summer day during your visit here. 

" Well, I soon detected the convenient arrangement, and 
this afternoon took Mrs. Steele and our niece Nellie upon 
the top of a huge omnibus the whole length of the Boule- 
vards, Rue St. Honor^ and the Champs tlysdes. We de- 
scended at various points and visited everything of interest 
on our way. 

" The view is infinitely better than from a voiture, while 
the cost of the whole was exactly three francs and sixty 
centimes. So we had the satisfaction of getting a better 
thing for less money — a combination not often found. We 
went at an hour when few workmen were moving, and by 
watching our chance got front seats next the driver, where 
we escaped the cigar puffers behind. Mrs. Steele pro- 
nounced the trip without a rival, and I expect I shall be 
called upon for an encore. 

" To do this feat successfully one needs to get an omni- 
bus map, study it carefully, have patience, and know how to 
use French with the men in charge. I found my fellow 
travellers only too anxious to tell the name of everything we 
passed en route, and to aid us to the utmost. The French 
sentences I threw at the people must have equalled Mr. 
Wegg's ' staggerers,' but the imperturbable countenances of 
the French carried them through, and they made no sign. 

" By the way, a friend, long resident in Paris, tells me 
that it is not the politeness of the French that keeps them 
from laughing when people make mistakes of this sort in 
their presence, but they actually see no fun in it. To the 
Frenchman there is nothing in a verbal blunder to laugh at, 
— it is a solemn reality." 

130 



The Traveller 

Paris, Sept. 2, 1881 : " I want to tell you how much 
I have enjoyed the International Electrical Exposition. 
When I first arrived I met Minister White, who had 
stopped here on his way home from Berlin. He told me 
how valuable the exhibition is and I immediately went to 
see for myself. I have spent nearly all my time there. 
It is worth a passage across the Atlantic. Everything in 
the history of electricity is on view, and every novelty in 
theory and application can be compared with another. I 
can hardly talk of anything else. 

" We are going back to London. I shall atterad the Great 
CEcumenical Conference of the Methodist Church occasion- 
ally, but the majority of the last days left us now will go 
into the Museum." 

In 1883, in reply to a letter from General Barnes, 
again abroad, Dr. Steele said : 

" Would I had been your guide in the British Museum ! 
I am sure I could have found, on many an Assyrian slab, 
a better ' giddy throng ' than that of which you speak. 
Yea, I could make you forget all about Hyde Park in 
the presence of some four-thousand-years-ago Egyptian 
aristocrats. Especially I should have liked Mrs. Steele 
there to show you the original of her graphic scenes, and 
let you see how the pictures really represent what the 
people of those times thought of themselves. But instead 
of this we are toiling over the 'Modern Peoples.' I am 
making a desperate effort to have it out by September first. 
I have added several new features as we have progressed. 
Mrs. Steele has just finished a delicious chapter on ' Life 
in Merrie England under Queen Bess.' I am busy condens- 
ing Louis XIV. and putting him in small packages. The 
Grand Monarch would have been shocked had he dreamed 
it would ever be proposed to give him only five pages in a 
History. But to such limits have I squeezed him, red shoes, 
floured wig and all!" 

131 



Joel Dorman Steele 

Other letters to his friend speak of his work and of 
his wish that it did not prevent him from another enjoy- 
ment of certain points abroad in the good company of a 
congenial spirit. But, except in memory, he travelled 
no more beyond those places in his own country where 
duty, pleasure, or the need of relaxation called him. 



132 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE HOME-KEEPING HEART 

HE was happy as he tarried or wandered among new 
scenes, but his home-keeping heart was happiest. 
From that summer day in 1859 when he was united to her 
who so fully possessed his love, the place dearest to him 
was where they might, at will, shut out the world and 
be a better world to each other. In every separation 
his letters longingly pictured the reunion of the home- 
circle, and his daily Civil War letter had always some 
yearning, pathetic reference to " our quiet home." 

" My heart can hardly wait until war is past and I can 
once more take up our happy life in Mexico, in that home 
where we had no cares and together did the work I love." 

After the Newark School engagement was made and 
while Mrs. Steele was in the west visiting a married sister, 
Dr. Steele rented a pretty cottage and had it entirely 
fitted up for her return as a surprise to her. The whole 
village was interested, and planned to be at the house 
to witness the denouement. But the friend with whom 
Mrs. Steele supposed she and her husband were to board 
telegraphed the returning traveller to come a day earlier, 
thus preventing a kindly-meant reception which might 
have been rather overwhelming. 

The surprise was a great success. The husband took 
the wife ostensibly to their landlady's home, where she 
133 



Joel Dorman Steele 

thought it a matter of course to find their own furniture 
in rooms that were to be theirs. It was not until she 
was hospitably shown over the rest of the house that she 
divined the loving scheme. 

The memory of their sojourn there was always dear to 
him. From Elmira in 1867 he wrote Mrs. Steele, then 
visiting in Newark : 

" I keep wondering what you do, where you stop, and 
how you get along, and imagining whom of all our friends 
you are greeting and if it seems as much like home to you 
as ever. I so much prefer that quiet, country life. It seems 
as if I should be perfectly happy to-day if I had a place 
there this spring, a garden to make, chickens to feed and a 
cow to milk, through all the long vacation." 

His attachment to people and places, dear through 
association, partook to the end of life of the same affec- 
tionate tenacity. It was this trait which determined him 
to fix upon Elmira as a permanent home when certain 
considerations seemed to make other cities more practi- 
cally desirable. 

He had sold the Lake Street house near the Academy 
when he went to Europe in 1872, and on the return 
from the second trip abroad the question of another 
purchase came up. The book publishers persuasively 
suggested New York ; the faculty and trustees of Syra- 
cuse University urged Syracuse ; Dr. and Mrs. Steele 
had serious thoughts of a country house on the Hudson. 
But the clinging of the heart to Elmira, the dread of 
again breaking church and social ties, prevailed. 

Mrs. Steele was absent when their latest home was 
bought and all the conditions and the arguments for and 
against were discussed by letter. When everything was 
at last decided Dr. Steele's joy knew no bounds. 
134 



The Home-Keeping Heart 

"O, with what unutterable longing I look forward to 
the prospect. I have grown tired enough of this straggling, 
hubbub life, when we could be so happy and comfortable 
by ourselves in our own quiet home. I begrudge every day 
of nomadic existence and the happiness it is losing us. I 
was never gladder than at the prospect of getting you here 
and into oitr own house once more. There is hard work to 
be done but then it will be home — a permanent one I hope 
— and I am well content." 

There were many alterations necessary and it was not 
until November 1874 that they found themselves settled. 
That winter was one of great enjoyment after three years 
of wandering and boarding. So also passed the spring 
and summer of 1875, Dr. Steele taking keen pleasure 
in his garden, a pleasure constant and lifelong, dating 
from their earliest married years. 

From Newark, May 25, 1865, he had writtten : 

" Our garden prospers. I set out a lot of tomato plants 
last night. I now have eighty-six alive and in good health. 
I have hoed my corn. We have had lettuce twice. I have 
never eaten tenderer." 

Elmira, 1868 : " The garden gives me great satisfaction. I 
worked there two hours last night." 

July 4, 1876: "Yesterday I set out cabbage plants and tur- 
nips. Our lettuce is now crisp and delicious. I am tying it 
up every day to keep dense heads ready for use. Will have 
some blanched for you when you return." 

In 1880: "Our early peas are coming up. Very prompt, 
is n't it ? Just think — only April sixteenth ! We have never 
had such a season since I made garden on West Clinton 
Street. I drove down to Griswold's nursery yesterday to 
get some new grape-vines. The air after the rain was ex- 
hilarating. I wished you were with me to share in the 
pleasure. Prince made some good bursts of speed." 

135 



Joel Dorman Steele 

May 27, 1S82: "Our radishes are melting for sweetness 
and tenderness. My hotbed is the best I have seen any- 
where." 

To General Barnes he wrote August 14, 1885 : 

" It would he delightful to join you and yours at the sea- 
shore and renew our Rue Jacob experiences a little bit. The 
difficulty is my home is so attractive now, the garden so fas- 
cinating, the vegetables so luscious, the flowers so beautiful, 
and the hills so invigorating. I really dislike to leave 
Elmira at this delightful season of the year. As I write, the 
rain has just ceased and my lawn is green and fair as any I 
ever saw in Merrie England. Why should I not stay and 
make the most of it after my long work ? " 

To this beloved home he welcomed many, — his church 
people, his old pupils, various savants who delighted in 
his company and the friends who lay nearest his heart. 
Referring to a projected visit from General Barnes, he 
wrote, June 1875 : 

" \iyou prefer you may go to the hotel. We prefer to 
have you stay with us. We can shelter both you and your 
troop. As to pieces of baggage, we can make room for 
any small number — say two to six — in our house ; I have a 
barn besides, and yard room, and I could rent a tenant house 
near by. I shall pile up my books, throw away my pen and 
ink and give myself up to a grand jollification while you are 
here. I only wish it could last longer." 

In his home, most of her life from childhood, lived a 
fiivorite niece of Mrs. Steele, and later an adopted son, 
both of whom he took into his fatherly heart. His 
talent for parenthood is in part shown by quotations from 
letters to Mrs. Steele : 

Sept. 6, 1868 : " I do not object to Nellie's romping. It 
will develop a good, solid, physical foundation. Better that 
136 



The Home-Keeping Heart 

than to be puny and feeble. We will let her romp miscel- 
laneously and only ' cultivate ' enough to keep the better 
ideas of life before her — understanding that the aim of all 
things is preparation for the future." 

Again: " My love to all — especially Nellie. Is she not 
ready to come home ? I have a great deal to tell her. The 
circus and many other things have been in town. Kiss 
her on any smooth spot for me." 

With what seriousness, yet humorous sympathy for 
childhood, does he speak of his experience when left 
alone to care for the children : 

" I cannot say our young gentleman has become an angel 
since you left. His spots are still visible even to the naked 
eye. But he is trying, he says, to be good all the week and 
I think he is making considerable exertion. Yesterday he 
was put into the chair for meditation only once, and that 
not till evening. It was quite a red-letter day in his calendar 
and he points to it with much satisfaction because, except 
for that one mistake, he was very pleasant and kind and got 
his candies, and some applause from the pit." 

In a letter inclosed in his will he mentions these 
beloved members of his family with pathetic tender- 
ness, — having already provided liberally for their future 
financial needs. 

One of his especial favorites was the little daughter of 
his publisher-friend. 

" I am greatly obliged," he wrote General Barnes, " for 
Hattie's photograph. She has, as you know, long been 
beloved by me. May she always keep as good and pure as 
she is beautiful." 

Dr. Steele's home life, however busy, always included 
thoughtful oversight and appreciation of the humblest 

137 



Joel Dorman Steele 



worker in his household. He mentions that the new 
man-of-all-work has learned to manage the furnace to 
perfection and that he " changes the cold-air draft with 
intelligence and without watching — as wind and weather 
demand." He tells how he has settled the business of 
the cook's late hours by a thorough talk, " yet all was 
done kindly and pleasantly," and he is " pleased with 
her forbearance and submission. She serves all the 
meals well and cheerfully ; everything is as you would 
wish it." 

His interest in all that pertained to the home was 
keen and helpful. Always gentle, always considerate, he 
treated every wish of its mistress with a courtly defer- 
ence and decision which made her rule over others easy 
and absolute. His domestic sense took account of every 
department. One vacation when he had been married 
about four years and Mrs. Steele was necessarily absent 
for some time, he electrified her by writing that he had 
"put up in cans about thirty quarts of berries," and 
added : " If you disapprove of this you can take them 
out and re-can or jam them or whatever else you call it." 

His enjoyment of the personal possessions that be- 
came theirs in early life by dint of economy and plan- 
ning was as great as in those larger treasures that came 
so easily in later days : 

July 31, 1864: "When I returned through Rochester, I 
remembered the lack of religious works in our library and 
bought ' Counsel and Comfort ' and ' The Everyday Philoso- 
pher,' by the Country Parson ; ' Views and Experiences on 
Religious Subjects' by Henry Ward Beecher; 'Thoughts 
for the Christian Life,' a series of most excellent sermons 
by Drummond with an introduction by Dr. Holland. I am 
delighted since buying. The Country Parson is, you know, 
138 



The Home-Keeping Heart 

considered among the best of ' Atlantic Monthly ' writers. I 
want also Dr. Clark's new work, ' Man all Immortal.' I 
shall buy this at Buffalo this week. I wish I could afford a 
set of Irving. I read his ' Mahomet and his Successors' 
this week. It was like the ' Arabian Nights.' Still I have 
a higher idea of the Prophet than before. He was a real 
presence." 

April, 1874 — ten years later — he wrote General 
Barnes : 

" Your plans for a library stir my blood. I do so much 
want and need one myself. I have now about three thous- 
and volumes to put on the shelves, so I could arrange 
by subjects at once. Perhaps the books may sell briskly 
enough to enable 7ne also to put up an appropriate and there- 
fore more modest library. I cotdd get along without stained 
glass windows or a Guido Reni in the ceiling." 

But no wish for what he would like and had not, 
cheated him of pleasure in that he had : 

To his wife, May 10, 1869: "As usual, when you are 
gone from home, I sit down at my desk in the old corner, 
where I have written for so many hours. This may not be 
a very handsome desk nor very valuable, but it has seen some 
days of hard work and some triumphs achieved. It is almost 
sacred to me with its wealth of associations. I bought and 
paid for it when I could not afford anything better. I cling 
to it now when my purse has grown somewhat longer — and 
better filled at that." 

This desk still stands with the workman's tools upon 
it and the workman's unfinished manuscript within it. 
By the side of the rusted pen, the bottle of dried ink, 
and other writing implements, unused since the hand 
that made them sacred was stilled, love places its daily 
offering of flowers. The chair, with a silken sash tied 
139 



Joel Dorman Steele 

across its arms, has never invited another occupant. 
But "His Corner" is hardly more orderly now than 
when it was the scene of his busy labors, for the personal 
habits of Dr. Steele were those of the most refined neat- 
ness and system. He knew where every book in his 
library should be, and every scrap of paper on his desk. 
So it was in his teaching days with the intricate appar- 
atus of his laboratory, on any piece of which he could 
lay his hand in the darkest night without mistake. 
This instructive systemization, so apparent in all he 
undertook, doubtless contributed largely toward his suc- 
cess in literary work. 

More and more as years went by, the heart of the 
home-lover turned toward its satisfying tranquillity. In 
July, 1884, he was obliged for literary reasons to be in 
Saratoga on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his marriage. 
On that day Mrs. Steele received from him an anni- 
versary letter of such delicacy, fervor and beauty of 
sentiment as might well place it among the model love- 
letters of the world. A few lines outside the body of 
the letter, which he called a " Lean-to " read thus : 

" Isn't it a delight, too, that when I come home it will not 
be to go off to some store or office, but just to sit down in 
the familiar spot, to talk it all over together and float on as 
we will down the stream ? The channel is dug ; the tide 
is strong ; our bark is fairly launched and success has 
crowned our endeavor. At the quarter-of-a-century turn it 
will not be amiss for us to number up all God's mercies. I 
am so grateful and happy to-night in spite of my exile. It 
seems as if you were very near." 

Of the home life of Dr. Steele, a Kentucky lady who 
was a familiar visitor, wrote after his death : 
140 



The Home-Keeping Heart 

"While others may speak strongly and lovingly of this 
man, great in wisdom and greater still in simplicity, I am 
constrained to write of him as the charming host, and — 
reverently — of what he was to her whom he left alone. As 
I often went to that home unannounced it was easy to judge 
him faithfully. 

" He was always cordial in his greeting, even when busy 
cares — and later weary pain — bore heavily upon him. At 
his table, where conversation took a lighter turn, his eyes, 
which having seen one can never forget, would lighten and 
his whole expression be one of keenest interest. He was 
emphatically a good listener. 

" I can scarcely speak of his wonderful devotion to her 
whom he loved so strongly and purely, without emotion. It 
was that of one who had found all his longings satisfied in 
her. 

" To have known the home life of Dr. Steele is a blessing. 
The sincere prayer arises : ' Make me better, O my Father, 
because of it.' " 

In i860, at twenty- four years of age, the young hus- 
band had written : " Our new stove keeps fire most 
beautifully. It had live coals from last evening at nine 
until half-past eleven this morning." 

Thus he loved from the first the light of his home fire 
and all it symbolized. It was within sight of its chaste 
glow that his final summons came. 



141 



CHAPTER XIV 

AS OTHERS SAW HIM 

MY first and intensest memory of Dr. Steele is as to the 
inspiring quality of his glance. Not the dullest pupil 
could withstand those life-full eyes. They positively com- 
municated thought. A slumbering idea, a latent power of 
expression, sprang into life under that gaze. His criticism 
of a pupil's work, though thorough criticism, accompanied 
by that look was never discouraging. You were always put 
on your feet by it." 

These, the words of the salutatorian of the Elmira 
Free Academy class of 1868, confirm the testimony of 
many others as to the peculiar power of his alert, 
beholding eye. 

Mrs. M. E. M. Davis, the New Orleans poet and 
novelist, says in reminiscence of a visit of Dr. and Mrs. 
Steele to that city : 

" We sat one night on a wide gallery, draped with the 
' King's Colors,' and watched a carnival procession, glitter- 
ing with lights and radiant with beauty, uncoil its shining 
length along Canal Street. The theme was French History. 
As one float passed with its group of figures, half mythical, 
half historical, I said: 

" * What does that group represent, Dr. Steele ? ' 

" ' I do not know,' returned the learned scholar placidly. 

" ' But,' I ventured, amazed, ' You who have written a 
French History — do you really mean to say that you do 
not know what this tableau from French History means .? ' 
142 



As Others Saw Him 

" He turned his beautiful eyes upon me, quizzical with 
laughter. ' My dear child,' he said, ' No one can really 
know more than a few things. The truly wise man is he 
who knows where to find his facts when he wants them ! 
And wiser is he,' he added gayly, ' who does not hunt facts 
during the carnival ! ' With this he bent his eyes once 
more on the merry scene in the street below. 

" It is a privilege to have known such a man, so simple 
and childlike, yet so strong and wise ; so brave and yet so 
gentle; tender as a woman; sturdy and unflinching in char- 
acter as one of his Puritan ancestors ; pure and noble of 
mind, whose life made the world better, whose death left 
a gap which cannot be filled. With a loving hand I write 
these words." 

Professor William Wells of Union College, once an 
instructor at Genesee College, was at a Regents' Con- 
vocation, where a paper on co-education was presented 
by a committee who made no mention of the work done 
at Genesee College and Syracuse University — the 
former the first co-educational college founded in the 
state, the latter its outgrowth. In these two institutions 
the system of co-education had been adopted with fear 
and trembling and became, a grand success through 
obloquy and trial, 

" The injustice of this cool neglect," said Professor Wells, 
" or this incredible ignorance, aroused my own wrath and 
its fervor was still more enkindled by the appealing eyes of 
J. Dorman Steele, who sat facing me. Near him also was 
a lady whose hfe and labors had been largely shaped by her 
co-educational training at Genesee College. When the 
modern Daniels had done, though not of the committee, I 
rose and asked the privilege of presenting my case, and 
I need hardly say that I felt the inspiration of my old pupils, 
being especially aided by the beaming glances of Dr. Steele, 
who was so excited that he could hardly keep still, while I 

143 



Joel Dorman Steele 



affirmed that co-education was a success before some of 
those young men were born who were now reporting on it 
as an experiment." 

" In personal appearance," said one who described him 
with an exact and pleasant pen, " Dr. Steele was tall and 
slim ; his hair, brushed straight back, revealed a high, broad, 
intellectual forehead; his eye was soft and pleasant; his 
narrow face relieved by dark side-whiskers ; his mouth 
indicative of firmness blended with gentleness. He was 
quick to recognize the friends he met ; his eye kindled at the 
sight, his voice was cheery, the grasp of his hand warm and 
cordial. In conversation he was genial, social and instruc- 
tive. His words flowed readily, and one rose from talking 
with him feeling better and more inspired to action. He was 
unselfish, generous, faithful — ready to praise what seemed 
to him commendable, and to speak a kind word for all that 
needed it." 

Every one who conversed with him felt the charm of 
his peculiar elevation of thought. Always natural, never 
pedantic or obtrusive, with a large range of practical 
and literary themes to draw from, his words were a 
wealth of instruction. 

Said a lady : " I shall never forget the day I walked 
home with Dr. Steele from church, over twelve years 
ago. I told my mother when I reached home that to 
walk with him was an education." 

It was at St, Augustine that Miss Berthe Louise 
Quirin, of Boston — then a child of seven — made the 
acquaintance of the grave but companionable Doctor. 

" He was always ready to explain anything that perplexed 
my childish mind. His clear and simple words impressed, 
and his gentle, lovable nature attracted me. He never 
posed, as so many do, in talking on serious subjects to 
children, and a long talk with him was always a pleasure, 
144 



As Others Saw Him 

for he adapted himself to my understanding and led it into 
channels of keen and delightful interest. Dr. Steele must 
indeed have been a very fruitful teacher, under whom it was 
good fortune to study. . . . 

" He always had a pleasant smile for me and we soon 
became great friends. We used to walk along the old sea- 
wall, and though he seemed so grave and dignified, he would 
laugh with me at the little funny stories and jokes I told 
him. Young as I then was, the impression of his kindliness 
has never faded." 

".It was during a winter spent in the land of sunshine and 
flowers," writes Mrs. Hill, wife of Hon. David Jayne Hill, 
Assistant Secretary of State, Washington, D. C, "that I 
learned to know and love Dr. Steele. I feel that I met him 
at his best, surrounded by the great kingdom of nature, 
to which his soul was so keenly allied, and every mood and 
variation of which were to him phases for interpretation. 

" Any topic he touched upon became at once in the 
simplest and most unostentatious manner a source of en- 
lightenment. The charm of his speech, I think, lay in the 
straightforward purity and simplicity of the man behind it, 
and in a certain elegant absence of effort which at once put 
his hearers completely at ease. 

" Dr. Steele shone in the firmament of social life as he 
did in the sphere of the intellectual. Even the ' clods ' felt 
a stir of might under the stimulation of his presence. 

" He was quick to recognize a joke, being endowed with 
a preternaturally keen sense of humor, and his tongue was 
not a whit behind when opportunity and his circle were to 
his liking." 

In every class of society the same traits won recogni- 
tion. Bishop Charles H. Fowler, the celebrated orator, 
was one of his College classmates. He says : 

" I recall him as always pleasant. His open face, ready 
smile, and genial recognition made him a welcome guest and 
a delightful companion." 

lo 145 



Joel Dorman Steele 

Shortly after Dr. Steele's death, Rev. Charles N. Sims, 
then Chancellor of Syracuse University, wrote : 

" My acquaintance with him began while I was a pastor in 
Brooklyn and he was prospecting for a Chancellor. He had 
been in my congregation, after services introduced himself 
to me, and dined with me that afternoon. My first im- 
pression never changed, except that my estimates grew 
higher as I knew him better. 

"He was a scholarly gentleman, a shrewd observer, a 
man of excellent business and common sense. He was a 
single-minded, reverential Christian, loving his church with 
a steadiness and fervor arising from a conviction that it was 
a great, saving grace among men. 

" He possessed the rare capability of strong and perman- 
ent friendship. He clung tenaciously to his friends and was 
fortunate in holding them without estrangement. His legacy 
to society is the record of a blameless Christian life ; of a 
strong, earnest scholarship ; and an authorship which was a 
valuable contribution to the educational facilities of hundreds 
of thousands of young people who have used his text-books. 
The world is better because he has lived in it." 

Major George H. Stowitz, writing largely but not 
entirely from a veteran's point of view, said : 

" The memory of the personality, loyalty, and patriotism 
of J. Dorman Steele is a pleasure. He came before the 
State Teachers' Association, in session in Rochester, in the 
summer of 1862, fresh from the battle-field, wounded, his 
arm in a sling. Standing before that body of educators, in 
his uniform of blue, he related in simple, eloquent words the 
instant need of the government for more men. There was a 
ready and united sympathy of feeling and approval, and the 
writer, with other teachers, was soon enrolled to swell the 
national army. . . . 

" Few men have more endeared themselves to the fra- 
ternity of educators than did Dr. Steele. The toil of his busy 
146 



As Others Saw Him 

brain will bear fruit, long after those who knew him and 
rejoiced in his merited fame shall have passed away." 

Such as those given were the affectionate words from 
countless friends and admirers who had known him as 
pupils, associates, fellow-soldiers, the companions of his 
hours of work or leisure. Children, clergymen, educa- 
tors, — each saw him from an individual standpoint, but 
all with earnest admiration. The history of his life from 
the beginning was full of the favor of God and man. A 
letter from Benton C. Rude, Esq., the valedictorian of his 
college class, shows how this was true of the youth, and 
brings a breath of the fresh, young days of preparation 
for all he had to do : 

" I first became acquainted with Dr. Steele in September, 
1855. I had just entered the freshman class of Genesee 
College and he had just passed into the sophomore class. 
We might have been long in getting acquainted but for the 
fact that our peculiarities brought us together. Among the 
many students, he attracted me first by his somewhat un- 
usual pedestrian qualities. The prevailing college style 
then was a slow, indolent, lounging gait, while young Steele 
swung ahead with long, rapid strides, slightly leaning 
forward, and looking neither to the right nor the left, as 
though his presence was sorely needed somewhere and he 
did not wish to keep anybody waiting. 

" I had a strong sympathy with that kind of walk and my 
performances doubtless attracted his attention as his had 
mine, and in a few days we struck up an acquaintance which 
became an intimacy that lasted throughout our college- 
course and long afterwards. It did not take me long to 
find out that — if not the most approachable of the young 
men gathered there — he was one of the most gentle and 
kindly. 

"Though appreciating fun as much as any of them, he 
did not join in the rough, practical jokes which are always 

147 



Joel Dorman Steele 



in vogue in such schools, and in which the humorous part 
always consists in some person's suffering or humiliation. 
His kindly nature kept him out of such things, but, though 
disapproving of them, to the knowledge of their perpetrators, 
he was rarely or never made the victim of such pranks. The 
good-natured way in which he took a joke at his own ex- 
pense dissipated all the pleasure of perpetrating it upon him. 
The boys soon found this out and gave him no further 
trouble. 

" Except when the societies to which he belonged met, he 
was almost always in his room evenings. Certain hours were 
sacredly devoted to study, and as much additional time 
as the case required. But in fair weather one hour of the 
day was invariably given to exercise. That was the hour 
after supper, which he gave to walking. I frequently ac- 
companied him, and when I could not go he usually went 
alone. Few cared to cover ground so rapidly as he usually 
did. 

"He was a steady attendant at society meetings, debates 
and literary exercises, in which he took an active part. 
Even in the societies to which he did not belong it was 
generally understood that he was, without any pretensions to 
oratory, a skilful debater. So far as I know, he was without 
an enemy. But, though on friendly terms with everybody in 
the college he had few intimates." 

All his life he was kind and friendly to all, but he 
"had few intimates." In 1875 he wrote to General 
Barnes, in reply to a letter of the latter, after the death 
of Dr. Steele's father : 

"Your words of sympathy, affection, and remembrance 
are appreciated with all my heart. You know I do not wear 
my heart upon my sleeve, and that when I use the word 
it has a meaning. You are my only friend in that fuller 
sense of confidence and repose. As you say — in such friend- 
ship words are not essential." 

14S 



As Others Saw Him 

To the friendship of these two, Dr. Steele brought an 
unrestrained participation in its phases, and a freedom 
of confidence most unusual to him. Could their delight- 
ful and voluminous interchange of letters be allowed to 
enrich this narrative, it would show a rare, remarkable, 
and fortunate attachment. Dr. Steele, to whom many 
hearts turned without disappointment, found in the 
friend of his foremost choice a sane comprehension of 
conditions ; a clever sense of values ; intellectual 
acumen; commercial sagacity; dexterity in complica- 
tions ; coolness in crises ; and — over, through, and above 
all — an open-hearted, sympathetic and chivalrous affec- 
tion. The fidelity of the friend and publisher never 
wavered before nor after the day, when he stood, a 
sincere mourner, at the open grave of his friend, the 
author. 

The last winter of Dr. Steele's Hfe, spent in Florida, 
included a few weeks in Jacksonville, at "The New 
Everett," kept by a young hotelman, to whom, after his 
return, Dr. Steele wrote a letter of thanks for courtesy 
shown to himself and wife. He received the following 
in reply : 

" Only a real good and good-hearted gentleman will take 
the time and trouble in this busy, rushing world, to sprinkle 
words of congratulation and encouragement in the path of 
the young aspirant to success in his particular calling. 

" Your time and words were not thrown away. You made 
others happier and more hopeful, and this knowledge repays 
a man like you more than bricks of gold." 

The spontaneous tributes of many of widely differing 
interests have been given, to show what others saw in 
him of whom this book is a meager memorial. Perhaps 
i.|9 



Joel Dorman Steele 

not all the lovely flowers of fragrant speech could perfect 
the cluster without this last honest, hearty offering, bear- 
ing the perfume of grateful good-will. They came from 
one whose earnest civility of attention had gone beyond 
the mere service of the paid host, and risen to the plane 
of generous impulse. They brought to the recipient, 
upon whom the chills of death were already creeping, a 
pleasant warmth — a final breath of that last Southern 
winter. Only a man who knew his kinship to every 
other man, and intuitively acted upon it, could have 
inspired them. 



150 



CHAPTER XV 

THE TALENT FOR INDUSTRY 

THE so-called favors of fortune never made any 
man great. People are born to greatness only 
so far as they are gifted with the possibilities of achieve- 
ment, and when any study is made of a story of accom- 
plishment it is usually found that the victor has won 
exactly where many others have wrought indifferently 
or failed utterly. And he has won through the courage 
of conviction, the courage of action, the courage of 
persistence, and the courage of endurance. Those who 
cry down his phenomenal success, by intimating that 
it has come mainly through the lucky accident of fav- 
orable opportunity, are moved by an inconsequent 
judgment. 

Throughout his life, wherever Joel Dorman Steele 
stood in any capacity, others stood beside him with 
equal choice of privilege, or had gone before with equal 
sanction and support. If any young man would learn 
the secret of his success let him study the lesson of his 
application and continuity. 

In 1 86 1 the young principal of Mexico Academy, dis- 
satisfied with his equipment as a teacher of Latin and 
Greek, returned to Genesee College for a short review 
and some advanced instruction. In the evening after 
his first lesson from Professor Bragdon he wrote Mrs. 
Steele : 

151 



Joel Dorman Steele 

March 12: "I am satisfied I have been giving good in- 
struction in scanning. Though needing some pohshing, my 
system is right. Professor Bragdon says my plan is just 
the thing for college preparation. I need a good deal 
of smoothing off and have made some mistakes in pronun- 
ciation. They were but few though — in which I find 
consolation. 

" But I find a new pronunciation in Latin obtains which 
is becoming very popular. Professor Bragdon has adopted 
it, also Brown, Rochester, and other universities. It is not 
difficult, yet will require hard work for a few days. I shall 
take it because my boys who are going to Rochester must 
have it. It seems odd, yet I am satisfied of its propriety and 
am delighted with it. 

" I am doubtful about coming back as soon as I expected 
since I find so much to do. Do not look for me very strongly 
as I must not come until this pronunciation is perfect. I am 
so nervous about these studies that I cannot write very well. 
So excuse my mistakes." 

The means and time of this young man, eager to fit 
himself for better school work, were so limited that he 
gave eighteen hours a day to his tasks. Yet, having just 
gained fresh enthusiasm and ability in teaching, he left all 
his new plans and hopes for camp and battle, carrying an 
equal lavishment of energy to their strange experiences. 

" We are now handling the shovel and the hoe with great 
precision and skill. If tedious employment it is at least 
perfectly safe, and if not glorious work it is very useful. I 
often feel sundry twinges and twaitgs to remind me of my 
physical inefficiency." 

Thus to every task appointed he addressed himself 
with the same spirit, and a remarkable story of indomit- 
able industry runs side by side with a record of resolute 
resistance to the encroachments of progressing infirmities. 
152 



The Talent for Industry 

He was never strong. " A dozen years before his 
death," said " The Academy " in June, 1886, " he broke 
down from overwork. But he husbanded his strength 
and still worked, constantly and systematically." 

To his wife : 

Elmira, Jan. 6, 1S67: "The last few days I have had 
some tokens of rheumatism, in a new place — the feet. I 
did not understand it. For two days I walked with great 
difficulty. Yesterday morning when I awoke, my ankle was 
stiff. Then I recognized the ' critter ' as my old friend and 
standby. In the night my trouble took the form of head- 
ache — same thing in another guise. 

" Regular school duties commence to-morrow and my 
time will be fuller than usual, for I add Greek to my work. 
This morning I led my Sunday-school teachers' class. Then 
I preached for Brother Van Benschoten. Was just com- 
fortably satisfied with myself — nothing more. After lunch- 
eon 1 further prepared my Sunday-school lesson, went to 
Sunday-school and had a capital time. Our lesson was first 
chapter of St. John, first seven verses. Read those verses 
and then imagine how a little child could be interested — 
and a big one too ! 

" One little boy on the front seat forgot what he was 
about, rose and came forward half way to me on the floor, 
standing until we finished. I was deeply astonished. It 
was a season of especial interest. But I am very tired to- 
night; if you were here I would remain home from church. 
But it would be too lonely without you." 

Sept. 6, 1868 : " We have numbered and catalogued the 
books, and the library is ready for use. It was a great task. 
Next week I must catalogue the apparatus and commence 
the State report. Another month's work — but I am good 
for it, I trust ! " 

Later — 1868: "The last of my proofs came yesterday 
with the index. I compared every figure and subject with 
the proof of the body of the work, to see if the paging was 
right. Oh, how my arm ached with turning the leaves ! 

153 



Joel Dorman Steele 



Frankie K and Nellie S then kindly looked through 

the whole book to find certain words I wanted to omit. 
Afterward I looked alone through the book line by line. 
I did not clear the proof from my desk until eleven at 
night. I was extremely tired. But now that the ' Natural 
Philosophy ' is off my hands I feel happy and gloriously 
free ! " 

New York, Feb. 17, 1870: "All tell me I must not work 
too hard. They, however, expect the ' Geology ' this sum- 
mer, for which advance orders for one thousand copies are 
already received." 

In the summer of 1 871, he greatly felt the strain of 
his labors. August 16, General Barnes wrote : 

" I am greatly pained and troubled to notice by your 
Dubuque letter how feeble you are. Oh, Professor, that 
won't do ! Pray go to some quiet place and play and fish 
and stop thinking." 

In January, 1872, Mr. A. S. Barnes, then in Florence, 
Italy, wrote to his son : 

" I am sorry to hear that Professor Steele is ill. You 
must constrain him to drop his pen, or bring it and his wife 
to Europe, settle down in some quiet place and complete his 
' Physiology.' One year in Europe will make him and his 
books much stronger than if he continues to write, half sick 
in America. This, I am persuaded, is good advice, and if 
followed will give him a longer life and make him more use- 
ful to his fellowmen." 

When the above was received Dr. Steele was already 
abroad. He was again much debilitated when he em- 
barked for his second tour. He wrote General Barnes 
— himself in Europe — from Watertown, May, 5, 1873 : 

" One thing which still more inclines me to go to Europe 
is this fact — I have had three of my brain attacks this 
154 



The Talent for Industry 

spring, already. And I remember the recruiting I did 
abroad last summer; the strength I gained has carried me 
through all the work of the last ten months. I must learn 
to use my strength more sparingly — when I have any on 
hand. But the lesson is very hard ! " 

June 28, 1873, London: "I do not feel quite like work. 
The brain attacks I had just before coming leave me weak 

— in the upper story. Yet I seem to myself to improve and 
hope to be soon at my labors." 

The attacks referred to were congestive and in the 
form of headaches of a most violent character. 

July 10, 1873, London: " Thank you for your hearty invi- 
tation to join yourself and Mrs. Barnes. We want to accept, 
but do not feel quite easy in our minds when we think of 
sacrificing work to fun. . . . The year's labor has been 
one of the hardest, if not the hardest of all my service. 
The revision of the ' Chemistry,' the preparation of the 
Key, and the proof-reading — that drudgery of drudgeries — 
of the two books, besides all the regular manuscript work, 
made a total of annoying, vexatious, and exhausting effort, 
beyond anything I ever had before. 

" I was constantly urged to get out each one of the books 
at the earliest possible moment, for this, that, or the other 
reason. . . . Aside from these things I do my best work 
when I work many hours a day. My brain turns out its 
best product only when driven at high pressure, day after 
day. If I take things easy my sentences are dull, heavy, 
and cumbrous. Only when my whole nervous system is on 
fire do my sentences sparkle and my style become lively and 
entertaining. Every paragraph, therefore, worth keeping or 
that at all satisfies me, takes just so much of my life force, 
and exhausts me to that extent. A good sentence consumes 
something which meat and drink do not promptly supply. 
It represents nervous energy and everything that goes into 
my books comes out of me. 

" After I have written a fine description — that is, for me 

— I feel a sense of loss which never accompanies such writ- 



Joel Dorman Steele 

ing as letters and the like, which produce merely physical 
fatigue. Then there is a vast amount of study in connec- 
tion with my book work. Perfection comes from labor, and 
I expend much time on my books. But I never grudge any 
pains or time given to revising, polishing, or verifying. It 
may sometimes seem of little account, yet it goes to make up 
the value of my books. Certainly now I dare not be care- 
less. Critics watch for every new attempt, thinking now 
they will catch me nodding. It is impossible, they say, for 
a man to write such a variety of books and be good at each. 

"So it comes constantly to my mind that I must care 
always for the larger things of accuracy as well as for the 
points of style, perspicuity, selection of words, and so on, — 
that I must not slacken, lest I fall. 

" This brings me back to my statement that this year 
has been terribly exhausting, with its burden of sorrow, ex- 
traordinary business cares and correspondence, its two 
books, the key, and all the rest. Am I not right in saying 
that each book must be harder than the preceding one ? I 
thank you for your words of warning — I do not wish to 
waste labor ; neither do I want any book of mine to fall 
still-born from your press." 

Jan. 21, 1874, Stuttgart: " I have been going through the 
slough of despond in my ' German History,' but this week 
have come to hard ground, I hope. I have finished the in- 
troduction and got Charlemagne in sight. He already 
assumes fair proportions and I think I shall trot him on to 
the stage so as to show him properly. German history is 
wonderfully complex. Church history covers a large part 
of it and makes it confusing and difficult to treat." 

Elmira, May 24, 1875: "I still live, though I have 
recovered from my illness slowly. I find myself head 
over heels in work." 

July 4, 1876 : "I have written quietly and steadily all 
day on the Exposition, which is my task now, and a big 
one at that. I feel very uncomfortable and dissatisfied 
156 



The Talent for Industry 

as to my progress and success." This last was to Mrs. 
Steele, to whom again he wrote December 26, 1876 : 

" By some means a form was put to press without waiting 
for my final corrections ... In looking carelessly over 
the pages, I detected, on page 29, a grammatical blunder. 
Was it not too bad ? Of course I fumed and fretted and 
sputtered and hurried oH messages to New York to change 
the plates at once. Then I went through the whole book, 
examining the agreement of every verb. It took two days 
but I found no other error." 

In 1879 Dr. Seaming of New York city made a care- 
ful examination of Dr. Steele's physical condition. He 
wrote Dr. William Wey, an eminent Elmira physician, 
who had introduced the patient to him, stating that 
he found no organic disease of heart or pleurae. His 
malady was pronounced . an exhausted and perverted 
nervous function of the organic nervous system, and 
certain derangements were declared to be the results 
and evidence of this. A lengthened period of hygienic 
and other treatment, with freedom from exhausting 
labor — outdoor life and pleasant occupation, were sure, 
the doctor thought, to restore him to comfortable life 
and usefulness. Dr. Seaming said that, at one time, he 
was himself in much the same condition — all from over- 
work — but that proper diet and hygienic treatment re- 
stored him. 

Whatever encouragement Dr. Steele could gather from 
this he took, and went on his way with patient and fear- 
less front. But he was not idle. He tried to lessen 
the strain, but natural diligence, intensified by habit and 
public demand, made complete rest a seeming impossi- 
bility. During the next half-dozen years the duties of 
life went busily on. He was better, he was worse, he 
157 



Joel Dorman Steele 



loved and enjoyed the world — he wrought for it with 
heroism. 

Jan. 28, 1880, St. Augustine, Florida: "The pleasant 
sunshine and quiet comforts of this delightful place already 
make us happy in the prospect of recovering energy. I 
have n't in years so much felt the need of rest — say since 
I went abroad first in 1871. And I am in just the mood to 
enjoy the repose I feel I have earned by many years of hard 
work." 

That season in Florida was a most interesting one and 
the letters he wrote were full of event. 

March i : " General Loring, a Confederate officer, is here. 
I have had many conversations with him. After the war he 
went to Egypt and commanded the Khedive's forces. He 
was received with great eclat on his return a month since. 
All eastern Florida turned out to do him honor. 

♦' The old Confederate soldiers were in their glory and 
the Marshal of the day was once an officer under Semmes. 
Yet nowhere did there appear a Confederate symbol of any 
kind. The monument in the Plaza in honor of the Confed- 
erate soldiers from St. Augustine, killed in battle, was 
decorated, but the speakers made no allusion to the Lost 
Cause. A party of serenaders, late at night, played ' Dixie,' 
but that was a pardonable display of sentiment. Strangely, 
too, the mottoes spoke of the General's exploits in Mexico 
and Egypt, but were silent on the subject of the Civil War. 
The General is equally reticent, and when the other day 
there was reference made to it by some gentlemen, he in- 
continently disappeared. It shows the good sense of the 
people, does it not ? " 

" On every side I see hearty acquiescence in the results of 
the war and an agreement that the abolition of slavery has 
been an advantage to the whites. But when it comes to the 
question of the negro's future, their views are not like those 
of the North. Souls rally slowly from inherited instincts. 



The Talent for Industry 

Slavery was destroyed by a stroke of Lincoln's pen, but it 
will be generations before its effects on black and white will 
be obliterated." 

It was of St. Augustine that Miss Quirin wrote : 

" Once as my mother and I were driving on the Shell 
road, our horse, maddened by the buzzing, stinging gnats, 
started to run away, and my mother, who was driving, be- 
came frightened and unable to hold him. Dr. and Mrs. 
Steele were taking a walk outside the gates that afternoon, 
and seeing our distress Dr. Steele came out into the road, 
seized the bridle and, after a short struggle, stopped the 
horse, patting and quieting him. The sudden and violent 
effort was too much for him, however, and his kindness 
caused him some minutes of acute suffering from palpitation 

— of which we grieved to be the cause. But his generosity 
made him always forgetful of self." 

Thoughtful and unselfish courtesy, and its equivalent 

— an avoidance of what might discommode another — 
were indeed characteristic of the man : 

" I try not to disturb any one," he wrote Mrs. Steele once, 
from a temporary boarding-place. "I go to my meals 
promptly and never sit down after eating. I think that will 
make the family least trouble." 

After 1880, the indications of Dr. Steele's progressing 
debility multiplied, but his diligence knew no abatement. 

St. Augustine, Jan. 21, 1881 : "In coming south the ex- 
posures and sudden changes prostrated me entirely. I was 
sick a week at Washington and two weeks at Atlanta. In 
the latter place I got so weak and suffered so much pain 
that my physician said I must leave for Florida and milder 
weather at once. I have improved every day since I came 
and though they actually had to lift me on the cars when 
they sent me on my way I can to-day get up and down 



Joel Dorman Steele 



stairs without help, by using my cane. I dislike to trouble 
others with my aches and pains and mention my illness 
only to account for my long silence." 

Elmira, Aug. 15, 1881 : "The 'Ancient History' moves 
along still, like the brook that goes on forever. I am 
gaining steadily. But I shall have to stop soon and devote 
myself to my ' Astronomy ' revision — quite a year's labor. 
It is a long look-out, but just what I gave to the ' Chemis- 
try ' and the new 'Physics.' Now the 'Astronomy' de- 
mands it in turn." 

Elmira, Jan. 13, 1883: "The Doctor has been urging me 
to go away to recuperate. I am glad I shall not have to 
write another book like the ' General History ' — especially 
the 'Modern Peoples.' I think I told you that cost me 
more work than any other book I ever attempted. I have 
spent six months in sandpapering the manuscript." 

One week afterward, General Barnes wrote Dr. Steele, 
who had gone to New Orleans : 

*" I can plainly see that you lay down your pen this time 
with great weariness. Poor fellow ! Your conscientious- 
ness evidently increases with experience, and it occurs to me 
that perhaps you do your books too well. I do not believe 
that there is a text-book maker living who digs out for him- 
self so much and appropriates so little from others." 

Elmira, Oct. 4, 1883. To General Barnes: "The 'An- 
cient Peoples' was begun in 1877 — September. So that 
History series — 'Ancient,' ' Mediicval,' 'Modern,' and 
'General' — has cost me six years. How little I dreamed 
that I was undertaking such a task — tlie most difficult of 
my whole life ! How often I have been tempted to give up 
in despair at the amount of reading and study required in 
the labor of investigation ! " 

Oct. 15, 1883 : " I am really recovering at last, slowly and 

steadily, but I hope surely. My brain rallies reluctantly, 

but even that shows tone, and this week for the first time I 

have thought that nature may have strength enough to put 

160 



The Talent for Industry 

me back where I was — only give her time for the beneficent 
work." 

St. Aygustine, February, 1884 : " In spite of rain and 
wind I have been able to get my constitutional every day. 
How I have enjoyed the long walks, even during the North- 
ers, while every little while comes a perfect day out of the 
gates of paradise, when just to bask in the sun and drink in 
the delicious sea-breeze is a delight. The flood of sunshine 
pours in through our five windows and glorifies the room." 

Saratoga, June 26, 1884. To Mrs. Steele: "The water 
as usual, affects me favorably. Last night I had the first 
good rest for a week. You know I had begun to toss about 
at night before leaving home, on account of my hard work. 
I am so glad you open and answer all my letters. I do not 
feel equal, just now, to the labor of writing, except on the 
work I must do and for which I came." 

The work referred to was his paper prepared for the 
Centennial of the University of Regents for the State of 
New York, before which it was read — his last pubUc 
work of this sort. 

From General Barnes, July 31, 1884 '• " I tremble for you 
under this high pressure, regretting very much that it seems 
to be necessary at this time. In your place I think I should 
have let the ' Astronomy ' sail through the heavens for another 
cycle, and take its chances. However, you would, and so 
you would / I am afraid you are a little obstinate. I am 
wretchedly uneasy." 

In the winter of 1885 Dr. Steele wrote General 
Barnes : 

" I have felt for some time that I have been running on 
the ties." And to Mrs. Steele later : " I get a little blue 
sometimes at the prospect of weak eyes the rest of my life. 
If I can only get my 'Chemistry' and 'Physics' revised 
before they fail entirely ! " 

II 161 



Joel Dorman Steele 

His eyes gave out while he was revising United States 
History and gave him much trouble thenceforward. Yet 
he worked on with varying condition of health and hope 
but no deviation from his thorough-going habits. 

Who can estimate the weariness of application, de- 
manded by ceaseless vigilance in composition and con- 
stant revisions, prompted by a spirit restless in view of 
possible error? Take his "Physiology," for example, in 
which he competed with physicians trained to their 
work by a lifetime of experience. Though unused in 
his course for the student, he felt the need of investiga- 
tion that would fill him with the spirit and language of 
the schools, so that nothing written should offend the 
prejudice or cultured instincts of medical men. In this 
he was eminently successful. 

The same is true of the new nomenclature of the re- 
vised "Chemistry." He had to master the system and 
then simplify it so as to adapt it to beginners. Of these 
things he once said : " The days of reading, trial, and 
study — the attempts and the dissatisfactions — none of 
these appear in manuscript or book." 

Little can the average reader know by what cost of 
toiling the bulky paragraphs were condensed into a few 
sentences ; how often chapters were thrown away, or re- 
written so many times that the original was forgotten ; 
how much fine work produced at high pressure was sac- 
rificed for the sake of brevity ; what bondage of purely 
manual labor was represented in the pages that passed 
under his hand. 

Dr. Steele's remarkable fortitude is well illustrated by 

an incident which occurred in 1858 during his first 

year's teaching in Mexico Academy. While conducting 

an experiment in chemistry a piece of phosphorus was 

162 



The Talent for Industry 

dropped on the back of his hand by a careless student. 
Instantly it burst into flame, burning to the bone and 
making an ugly wound. He carried his hand in a sling 
for weeks. Speaking of this after his death, Dean 
French, in whose family the young teacher boarded, 
said : 

" I used to wonder how he could endure without flinching 
the daily dressing of that hand. Though his face betrayed 
the intensity of the pain he endured, he never withdrew his 
hand from the operator, nor ceased to be cheerful, indulging 
in humorous remarks during the process." 

This youthful, unflinching courage foretold the un- 
yielding pluck of the marching soldier ; the valor of the 
wounded captain leading on his men ; and the resolu- 
tion of the worker, who in spite of racking pains could 
patiently advance the duty in hand while undergoing 
harassment of mind and body, afterward taking pleasure 
in a little respite, with thankfulness and cheer. 

Doubtless many an ambitious beginner, mindful of the 
temporal rewards that came to Dr. Steele, may have felt 
an impulse to compete for like prizes. Let any such 
mark well the weariness of the race and only with brave 
humility dare to set foot upon the track. 



163 



CHAPTER XVI 

life's immortal beauty 

AFTER the news of the death of Dr. Steele had been 
telegraphed over the country, Rev. Dr. Charles 
W. Bennett — himself an erudite scholar, teacher, 
preacher, and author of distinction — wrote to the 
Northern Christian Advocate, of Syracuse, these mourn- 
ful, commenting queries : " Why do such men die so 
young? Is there not a suicidal phase to these young 
deaths? Why cannot men work on until they are seventy- 
five ? Please answer this in your next leader. There is a 
moral side to this question that it will do to enforce." 

Rev. Dr. O. H. Warren, at that time the able editor 
of the Advocate, made a just and comprehensive reply, in 
which he said': 

" Within various limitations the conservation of life is 
possible to every man, and amid all differences of opinion 
concerning the sudden breaking and premature death of so 
many hard-working men there is agreement in the judgment 
that it is largely due to overwork and an incessant and too 
tense strain on the nervous system. . . . Ought a man to take 
upon himself a greater burden than he can reasonably hope 
to carry from year to year, without injury to his health, until 
age shall diminish his strength ? This is a question of 
duty. . . . 

" But duty, indicated by providential leadings, or by those 
demands which are met in the prosecution of one's mission, 
is love's justification of self-sacrifice, or the imperilling or 

164 



Life's Immortal Beauty 

laying down of one's life. And duty, it should be remem- 
bered, often takes life by instalments, and it is sometimes 
difficult to tell where its fatal draft is made. 

"Take for instance the life of the lamented Steele. He 
was a man who conscientiously guarded his health ; but 
there was a moment in his life when he heard the call of his 
country and answered it as a patriot. Hardship, privation, 
exposure, wounds, taxed heavily a slender constitution. Duty 
made a heavy draft in those years and in the balancing of 
the account it was found that his days were shortened. 

" There are thousands of emergencies less conspicuous than 
war with which men are connected in their peaceful pursuits, 
by necessities and demands which they may interpret as the 
call of Providence. They find themselves in positions from 
which they cannot escape without peril to great interests, 
and they bear many burdens which they cannot throw down 
without disaster to those they serve ; but they stand firm 
and true, though duty takes an instalment of life as the price 
of fidelity and success. The mother gives service to her 
child, the father to his family, the patriot to his country, the 
Christian to his Master, subject to these instalments — yea, 
to the full draft of duty on life, if need be — leaving the re- 
sult with the Father in Heaven." 

More discerning words could hardly be written in 
view of the life and death of him whose loss inspired 
them, and they are introduced at this time as luminous 
comment on the story of one whose sense of religious 
duty included the consideration and understanding of 
his bodily needs, yet pressed him forward, in spite of 
them, to meet the obligations of higher demands. 

Dr. Steele had returned from a Florida winter in April, 
1886, meditating fresh undertakings, yet aware of possible 
and final interruption. On May 25 th he was looking, 
and apparently feeling, especially well. Among many 
calls of that afternoon was one from a young matron and 

165 



Joel Dorman Steele 

familiar neighbor who came to show him a rare flower. 
He was interested, and produced its counterpart in his 
own herbarium, pressed twenty-five years before. He 
had, indeed, both in Mexico and Newark, gathered, 
classified, pressed, and preserved many flowers, and his 
letters of those years contained numerous accounts of 
happy hours spent in the woods, with botanical descrip- 
tions of their floral trophies. 

The temperature had suddenly fallen that afternoon 
and Dr. Steele had omitted his usual drive. At about 
half past five he donned his overcoat and walked half an 
hour in his garden and through the paths on the lawn. 
Already the plans for his annual seed-planting were in 
part perfected. On returning to the house he was 
joined by Mrs. Steele, prepared for dinner. He, how- 
ever, complained of chilliness and aching bones, feared 
he had taken cold, suggested a hot foot-bath and said 
he would not dine. 

Mrs. Steele at once poured and brought him a cup of 
hot cocoa and wished to assist in the details of the bath. 
To this last service he would not consent, begging her 
to ring the bell for the servants, but before they could 
arrive he stood upon his feet, evidently to relieve a pain 
about his heart. His son, Allen, hastened for a physi- 
cian, while the beloved niece, Nellie, aided in support- 
ing him. Directly, however, he began to sink, his arm 
about his wife's neck, his head upon her shoulder. By 
the time he had reached his chair, all was over. It had 
been just forty minutes since he entered the house from 
the garden, and the plate that had been laid for him at 
the table was not yet removed. 

Dr. Wey, hurriedly summoned, came at once. But 
his skill was no longer needed for the master of the house. 

i66 



Life's Immortal Beauty 

Neighbors and friends, called in haste, were seeking to 
sustain and minister to the appalled family group, and 
especially to the stricken and distracted widow. Before 
them, lying on a couch where it had been placed, was 
the form of the beloved dead. The gentle heart had 
forgotten its sharp, swift and final pang ; the tired brain 
had ceased its busy thought ; all the tasks of the willing 
hands were done ; and on the pale and quiet features 
lay a suggestion of that Heaven toward which the face 
had steadfastly turned throughout a trustful, obedient, 
and benignant life. 

So long as those live who can recall it, there will re- 
main in Elmira a keen memory of the sorrow felt 
throughout the city. Words of admiration, affection, 
and regret from hundreds eminent throughout the 
nation ; sincere tributes of educational, religious and 
secular publications ; all these showed the place he had 
gained in men's minds and the deference with which he 
was regarded ; but the hearts of his townspeople by the 
pain of personal grief, testified most fully to his recog- 
nized worth and their consequent loss. 

Funeral services were held on Friday, the 28th, 
at two o'clock. They were attended by a representa- 
tive body of scholars and clergymen and by many 
friends and citizens. The ceremonies were of a simplic- 
ity in keeping with the character of the man. The body 
was laid to rest in Woodlawn Cemetery, a beautiful God's- 
acre, and here, from sunrise to sunrise, so much of light 
as Heaven gives shines upon his grave. 

On the Sunday following, a memorial service was held 
in the Hedding Methodist Episcopal Church, Chancel- 
lor Sims delivering a tender and impressive address, 
helpful, hopeful, and thoroughly mindful of the lessons 

167 



Joel Dorman Steele 

and ministry of the life that had so suddenly passed 
away. Dr. Noah Clarke on the educational work, and 
Dr. E. M. Mills on the spiritual life of Dr. Steele, fol- 
lowed. A large concourse of people listened sympathet- 
ically and sadly. One of the number, when all was over, 
said to another with feeling : " It seems a strange wisdom 
that removes a man like Dr. Steele, cutting short his 
work and usefulness." It was a saying that expressed 
the thought of many a heart, burdened with grief in spite 
of Christian faith. 

But Dr. Steele well knew in his last years that the 
shadows slanted backward as he looked toward the west, 
and his house was set in order for the sunset. And ac- 
cording to his nature the preparation had in view the 
perpetual influences of church and school. 

Throughout his professional life he had never taught 
an intellectual truth without a thought of God. On the 
fine New England granite which marks his resting- 
place are these words, graven at the direction of Mrs. 
Steele : " His true monument stands in the hearts of 
thousands of American youth, led by him to 'look through 
Nature up to Nature's God.'" 

Henry White Callahan, Principal of Kingston Academy, 
N. Y., in speaking of this influence, declared : 

" No man of our generation has done so great a work 
for the cause of secondary education. Through every book 
he ever wrote breathes the spirit of religion, pure and unde- 
filed — a strong defence at the outset against the agnostic 
tendencies of modern science." 

Of his capacity as an inspirer of faith, Mrs. Juliet 
Packer Hill, already quoted, remarks : 

" He was singularly happy in his power of expression, in 
a talent for conveying to otliers what he himself felt at the 

i6S 



Life's Immortal Beauty 

moment. Here the pure altruism of the man, as a teacher, 
found its vent, and every one who came under his influence 
unconsciously sought after truer and better standards. The 
old tests and measures grew meager in the light of the ever 
advancing march of science as revealed to him. And his 
was a prophet's vision indeed ! The doctrine of evolution, 
when in its infancy, found in his mind a hospitable shelter, 
and as clothed upon by him became reconcilable with the 
great truths of religion." 

In harmony with his past and his profound desire 
toward the future he sought to insure somewhere a per- 
manent science instruction that should recognize God as 
an intelligent Creator. Of this he had talked with Mrs. 
Steele as early as 1880 and they were agreed. The re- 
sult of his resolutions appeared when his will was opened, 
and it was found that he had bequeathed fifty thousand 
dollars to Syracuse University to found a chair of Theistic 
Science. 

Thus he asserted after death, as he asserted in life, 
the presence of a God in the Universe, thus he pro- 
tested after death, as he protested in life, against a cold, 
irreverent learning that knows Him not. 

" Your ministers," said Dr. Steele in an article on the 
study of Natural Science, " open the Bible and expound to 
you its contents. In my laboratory I open another volume, 
written by the same Being, and my students, day after day, 
read its pages and see with certainty and joy His footprints 
gleaming on the sands of time." 

" There are mysteries in religion and there are mysteries 
in science," said he in a public talk on one occasion, " and 
the exponents of both have made their mistakes. But let us 
pray most earnestly that during this transitional stage of 
thought — while we are in the din and heat of controversy — 
we may learn to labor and to wait, that our faith may not be 

169 



Joel Dorman Steele 



shaken ; that earnest scholars may not be driven out of the 
church by blind fanaticism ; that scientist and religionist, 
both equally sincere, both seeking new truths though in dif- 
ferent spheres, and all hoping to discover the eternal verities, 
may clasp hands and find the grand, central thought of all 
life and all time in the gospel of Christ. So may each see 
the same truth growing brighter and clearer with every dis- 
covery of science, every experience of religion, — a mighty, 
pivotal fact on which shall swing the destinies of time and 
eternity." 

Syracuse University, as the development of Genesee 
College, was the alma mater of Dr. Steele. From 1870, 
the year of its transference, to the time of his death, he 
was one of the trustees, and as such annually aided in 
making up its deficiencies, usually giving five hundred 
dollars, a large sum in the first years of his success. To 
the University, from some of his first royalties, he gave 
valuable geological restorations, and to it, for science 
and religion, he left his largest gift — " out of the fortune 
of a man who was generous enough and broad enough to 
measure his hard-earned money against what he honestly 
believed to be the claims of learning upon him." 

On May 26, the day between the death and burial of Dr. 
Steele, the First Methodist Episcopal Church of Elmira, 
of which he was a member, burned to the ground. Its 
pastor. Rev. Dr. E. M. Mills, cancelling an out-of-town 
engagement telegraphed a church official : " My church 
is in ashes and my dearest friend lies unburied." The 
pathetic eloquence of these words well expresses the 
consternation and depression of the entire congregation. 

But the open hand of him who had brought his gift 

in other crises had written a thing the people knew not 

of. A legacy of eight thousand dollars was devised to 

the church. " It would almost seem," commented an 

170 



Life's Immortal Beauty 

Elmira paper, " as if he saw the disaster to come and 
made provision for it. It is Uke a gift from Heaven." 

The will of Dr. Steele when opened was found to con- 
tain a letter to his wife, written six months before. The 
letter, which is a long one, speaks of his desires and 
hopes in reference to the disposal of his property and 
tells why his various decisions were made. Its final page 
is in part quoted : 

" Now in conclusion I would say, if I could, how my 
heart turns back to-day, and rejoices in the long, happy years 
we have spent together. How faithful you have been to me, 
sharing in every labor, and aiding me to accomplish, by your 
unstinted help and favor, what other wise I could never have 
accomplished : and how glad I am that these later years of 
your life have been and will be restful and abundant. ... I 
have poured out my thoughts here fully and do not even re- 
read these final words of love and remembrance. Good Bye, 
and Good Bye." 

The letter contained one sentence, in reference to 
the chair of Theistic Science, which had been carefully 
obliterated with pen and ink. This sentence, after long 
study and many devices, Mrs. Steele at last deciphered. 
It suggested that the possible increase of copyright 
royalties might soon enable her to make the University 
bequest effective. Evidently on second thought he 
sought to efface this, lest his wife, in her ardent desire 
to fulfil his every wish, should carry out his suggestion 
without considering her convenience. 

The money left to the University was subject to three 
annuities. Mrs. Steele at once renounced her own and 
assumed the payment of the two others. By this gener- 
ous act she insured the speedy establishment of the pro- 
fessorship for which her husband had made ultimate 

171 



Joel Dorman Steele 

provision, and she has since annually provided for all 
its current expenses. 

As Physics was Dr. Steele's favorite science, it was 
chosen as the basis of the professorship. But the Physi- 
cal apparatus of the young University was exceedingly 
meager, and the eminent scientist who was called to the 
chair was discouraged by the prospect. Again the faith- 
ful wife rose to the emergency, and to the thousands of 
dollars she contributed were added other thousands by 
the appreciative trustees, so that, now, in the handsome 
limestone building which represents the Steele professor- 
ship on the University campus, there is an exceptional 
array of rare instruments and as fine electric appliances 
as can be found in any college in the land. 

In the matter of the church, as in the matter of the 
university, the wife exceeded the measure of her hus- 
band's will. In the new building which rose upon the 
ashes of the old, she placed a large memorial window 
designed by herself and executed by Donald MacDonald 
of Boston. The upper half consists of four illustrative 
panels. In the first his early piety is represented by a 
figure of Samuel at prayer ; it bears the legend : " Speak, 
Lord, for Thy servant heareth." The second depicts the 
soldier, — David with his sling : " Thy servant will go 
and fight." The third is the teacher, — a guiding angel : 
" I will speak of thy wondrous works." The fourth is 
the author — St. John : "And he said unto me. Write." 
In the ornamental arch over the panels are the words : 
" God that made the world and all things therein, Him 
declare I unto you." The lower half of the window is a 
copy of Raphael's cartoon of St. Paul preaching at 
Athens, At the base, below the name and the dates of 
birth and death, are placed two inscriptions, side by side, 
172 



Life's Immortal Beauty 

which read, respectively : " To perpetuate the memory 
of a sincere Christian, a loyal patriot, a generous bene- 
factor and an earnest teacher," and " This window is 
here placed by her to whom God granted the supreme 
joy of best knowing the grace and beauty of his un- 
sullied life." The exquisite coloring and workmanship 
of this memorial window are unsurpassed. 

On the opposite side of the pulpit is another beau- 
tiful stained glass window of equal size, a tribute from 
some of Dr. Steele's friends and pupils. It represents 
the parable of " The Faithful Steward," and among other 
inscriptions bears the texts : " God gave him riches and 
honor and he was a faithful steward," and " Lord, thou 
deliveredst unto me five talents ; behold I have gained 
beside them, five talents more. His Lord said unto 
him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant ; thou 
hast been faithful in a few things, I will make thee 
ruler over many things ; enter thou into the joy of thy 
Lord." 

From small to great things in the record of his life 
the faithfulness of Dr. Steele's stewardship was conspic- 
uous no less than the increase of his talents — already 
marked. A letter to Mrs. Steele in 1862 says : 

" I have applied my money to the wants of my soldiers' 
families. Some of my men have been two months without 
a cent, and their families are suffering. I have loaned them 
in all over a hundred dollars." 

This was the frugal, self-denying teacher-soldier, whose 
salary had never been more than eight hundred a year, 
and whose livelihood depended on the favor of school 
boards. 

In 1883 he wrote, in answer to an invitation to join 
173 



Joel Dorman Steele 

Mr. A. S. Barnes and wife in a trip to cover interesting 
points both in and out of the United States : 

" For pleasure and physical benefit nothing could please 
me more. But it involves large expense and I find the 
increasing demands upon me for generosity, together with 
my need of books, lectures and travel difficult to check. 
People have an idea that I am really a rich man — a sort 
of fourteen-weeks millionaire — and my responses to their 
appeals seem to them niggardly enough. I have some heavy 
burdens on me in church and elsewhere, so that my income 
is nearly half absorbed before I touch it for personal use." 

But with all his liberal impulse it would have been 
impossible for him to carry to fullest usefulness his plans 
for others, without the constant and unselfish co-opera- 
tion of one, who with perfect and remarkable sympathy 
rose to the level of every intellectual and spiritual aspi- 
ration. Rare is the compatibility that is preserved 
through the contrasts of an experience, begun amid the 
restrictions of narrow means and coming to the expan- 
sions of large income, with all it implies of increased 
accountability and social dignity. Dr. Steele, in the 
spontaneous open-heartedness of habitual giving, as well 
as in the deliberate proposals of far-reaching bounty, 
found himself always cordially supported by his wife. 
Together they talked, in the last years, of some gift of 
abiding usefulness, and she warmly coincided with his 
final decision that it should be the founding of the Syra- 
cuse chair. 

There was, however, another noble-minded desire set 
aside by this choice, A dear dream he had often dreamed 
had been that of an ample public library in his home 
city. He concluded to talk no more of this, however, 
as an individual undertaking, when he determined on 



Life's Immortal Beauty 

the work that was wider in its scope and influence. 
Yet he often suggested it to his fellow-citizens as an en- 
terprise for all. In a letter from the south to the " El- 
mira Advertiser," he wrote, in 1881 : 

" Atlanta has achieved what we in Elmira have desired 
for so many years — a public library. Mr. Brown, president 
of the library association, called upon me and gave me a 
most interesting history of the enterprise. ... If we could 
only find Mr. Brown's double — a man who would give 
himself up, body and soul, to the great enterprise, I believe 
we might in Elmira establish a grand Public Library that 
would be the pride of the city." 

After the chair of Theistic Science became a fact, 
Mrs. Steele, cherishing the memory of her husband's 
generous instincts, and equally inspired by her own, 
began to plan new things in loving remembrance. So, 
in her loyal heart and mind, the library thought grew, 
and finally became a definite project. It was several 
years before she felt she might safely begin positive 
work ; then she set in motion the bewildering detail of 
professional and industrial stir necessary to the execu- 
tion of her design. 

The corner-stone of " Steele Memorial Library Build- 
ing " was laid May 27, 1895, nine years to a day from 
the date of Dr. Steele's burial. In August, 1899, the 
library was formally opened to the public, and at once 
found extraordinary patronage. 

The gift when turned over to the people of the city 
represented the sum of sixty-five thousand dollars, cu- 
rios and pictures included. The building itself, which 
is one of the handsomest edifices in the city, cost over 
forty thousand. A great number of the volumes are 
175 



Joel Dorman Steele 

scientific, historical, sociological, and metaphysical. 
They are by the highest authorities and of untold value 
to students and thinkers. The circulating department, 
which carries benefit to many homes, is a growing and 
increasingly useful feature. 

The rich beauty and fitness of the library proper are 
not excelled, it is safe to say, within the state. Perfect 
harmony of proportion, coloring, and equipment delight 
and educate the frequenter, and every arrangement is 
planned with a view to the comfort and convenience 
of those who come to take away or to remain for study. 
The finely lettered and gilded mottoes, which adorn the 
frieze on the four sides of the reading-room — a sug- 
gestion borrowed from the Congressional Library in 
Washington — are diamond chips of thoughts which en- 
rich the memory of even a casual visitor. 

" Read not to contradict and to confute ; nor to believe 
and take for granted ; nor to find talk and discourse ; but 
to weigh and consider." — Bacon. 

" Knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to Heaven." — 
Shakespeare. 

" Get wisdom, and with all thy getting, get understanding." 
— Solomon. 

" The true university of these days is a collection of books. 
In books lies the soul of the whole past time." — Carlyle. 

" Glory is acquired by Virtue, but preserved by letters." — 
Petrarch. 

" Beholding the bright countenance of Truth in the quiet 
and still air of delightful studies." — Milton. 

" Books are a substantial world, both pure and good." — 
Wordsworth. 

" Every book we read may be made a round in the ever 
lengthening ladder by which we climb to knowledge." — 
Lowell. 

176 



Life's Immortal Beauty 

No nobler gift than a library can be offered to any 
community. If not a first, it is always an ultimate, 
necessity. It is in its ministrations the companion of 
the church and the school, and wherever founded, it must 
become the centre of an uplifting and ampler intellectual 
life, charming and blessing successive generations. As 
the bounty of a man, it is an undertaking of no small 
moment. For a woman its inception and accomplish- 
ment is a vaster task, only to be measured by the en- 
lightened gratitude of the generations that will enjoy its 
advantages. 

Mrs. Steele's fidelity to the expressed or apprehended 
wishes of her husband have, as is seen, led her into an 
independent courage of plan and a fervor in execution 
equal to her collaborative adaptability — which amounted 
to positive genius. And she has considered and aided 
many causes wherein the world has never seen her hand. 

It was the founder's wish to call her gift the " Joel 
Dorman Steele Memorial Library," but in this she was 
overruled by advisers. It therefore stands without dis- 
criminating title, but appropriately bearing the name 
to which both husband and wife have brought distinc- 
tion, and which must evermore call to mind the life it 
commemorates and the wifely devotion that seeks to 
extend — as he would have extended — its gracious 
goodwill. 

In Syracuse, also, the names are connected with the 
University in equal and permanent honor. The faith- 
fulness of Mrs. Steele in carrying out the provisions of 
her husband's will, and her further abundant liberaHties, 
gained the admiration and gratitude of the University 
authorities, and when, in 1897, a beautiful and commo- 
dious Science building was erected, it was voted to carve 
12 177 



Life's Immortal Beauty 

in the stone above the entrance the words " Esther 
Baker Steele Hall of Physics." The University had 
already, in 1892, conferred upon her the honorary title 
of Doctor of Literature in recognition of her intellectual 
attainments and achievements, and in 1895 she had 
been elected to a place on the board of trustees. 

The immortal beauty of any life is its love and the 
deeds of blessing that spring therefrom. Over this the 
shadows of death cannot prevail. Far and steadfastly 
it shines from its altar of renunciation, obedience and 
fealty. Far and steadfastly with undying radiance 
streams the enlightening glow of its pure flame, which 
has kindled and shall kindle many another holy ardor. 



178 



CHAPTER XVII 

FROM HIS DESK 

IN making up a volume illustrative of the character 
and services of Dr. Steele, his personal letters and 
literary remains are an embarrassment of riches. The 
books have been passed with their simple history of rise, 
progress and permanent power. They stand on the 
roll of famous books forever, known in councils of 
schoolmen, and teaching even when, superseded by 
later thought, their pages no longer fascinate the eye 
and the heart of the young. Sold by the million, trans- 
lated into Arabic and Japanese, used in many schools 
of South America and put into raised letters for the 
blind, they tell their own tale of the man back of them, 
who gave no countenance to any theory that overlooked 
the Divine Creator. They proclaim the teacher and the 
author, who, more and more, as he was brought into the 
relation of care-taker and guide to the young, shook 
himself clear of the restraints of mechanical pedagogy, 
and swung into the untrammelled freedom of a fine, 
perceiving nature. They speak of the reverent be- 
liever who taught spiritual things as potently as he 
taught intellectual things ; who throughout his life joined 
the knowledge of the schools to the wisdom approved 
of God ; who looked beyond the careless hours of youth- 
ful wilfulness, plot, and rebellion, farther than any tempo- 
179 



Joel Dorman Steele 



rary condition of the schoolroom and saw the waiting 
and just compensations of time. 

But his books probably contain not more than half 
the writings of his life. There were also countless lec- 
tures, parlor talks, addresses for church societies, 
entertainments, and conferences ; papers for teachers' 
institutes, associations, and conventions ; and some of 
the most practical and eloquent sermons ever delivered 
in any pulpit or before graduating classes of young 
students. 

Besides all these there were letters — so many that 
they would represent an ordinary man's lifetime of labor. 
From the army he constantly wrote graphic letters for 
publication, often several columns long. When abroad 
or at any point in his own country distant from home, 
he sent to his home papers richly instructive and enter- 
taining accounts of all he saw and heard. On current 
topics, local or otherwise, he put into print the shrewd- 
est good sense and a foresight that recalls to the reader 
of this day the words once spoken of his " prophet's 
vision." 

This " vision " explains much of the enduring quali- 
ties of man and work. His opinions, written long ago 
on political tendencies, on alcohol and its problems, on 
slavery and its outcome, on the status of the negro. 
North and South, stand verified to-day. With quick 
foresight he recognized the living truth, followed 
wherever it led, and was able to forecast conditions 
and to say the instructive word of present forbearance 
and expectation. This quality enlarges the sphere of 
any man and carries his life beyond death with infinite 
expansion and accomplishment. 

This chapter will be devoted to some quotations from 
1 80 



From His Desk 

his writings which seem especially to contain in them- 
selves the heart of love, wisdom, and instruction. As 
showing the unconscious disclosure of his universally 
considerate nature a few personal paragraphs are given. 
There is one little letter written to a young lady, a 
dear friend of Dr. and Mrs. Steele, and called by them 
in allusion to an epithet once playfully given, " The 
Wily Fox." It acknowledged an announcement of her 
betrothal : 

" Your message does not take me entirely by surprise. 
A bird had whispered in my ear that the trap was set and 
frequently visited by a certain eager sportsman, while the 
fox seemed to have lost much of its old-time wiliness. As 
a man I rejoice greatly over your capture at last. It is 
another triumph of my sex. 

"And now accept my sincerest congratulations over this 
defeat of yours — which is a victory. A brimming quarter 
of a century has taught me the blessedness of married life. 
I can express no better wish for you than that your experi- 
ence may be the counterpart of mine." 

Another letter, written late in his ife, demonstrates 
his respectful attitude toward the opinions of others 
even when they were contrary to his own. It is in ref- 
erence to an evangelistic work not to his taste : 

" Those things to which I object seem not only sensa- 
tional but something beyond this, which I am unwilling to 
characterize lest I misjudge. I cannot, however, sympa- 
thize with them nor work in such meetings, and I feel that 
my absence from town has been beneficial, since I might, 
by non-attendance, have been a hindrance to a revival which 
seems to have done great good. It comes to me as a con- 
stant admonition that 'what is one man's meat is another 
man's poison.' A method that really harms one may directly 
benefit another. I rose from hearing a sermon, not long 



Joel Dorman Steele 

since, saying to myself tliat I had done my duty and at- 
tended church, but had received no help. Going home, I 
walked with a good brother who warmly expressed his 
spiritual betterment. I was therefore bound to beheve that 
was a good sermon for somebody, and resolved to be increas- 
ingly careful about criticising from the mere standpoint of 
personal preference." 

Of his attention to the claims of church methods his 
letters amply testify : 

" I spoke at the church sociable last night, and am pretty 
tired this morning. I did not feel much like doing it, but 
it was thought something about my travels would increase 
attendance. Our friends seemed pleased." 

This was for Mrs. Steele, to whom alone he spoke of 
the effect of his public appearances as a speaker. From 
his impressive success at Lima, Commencement week, 
1863, which fixed the attention of many educational 
people upon him, to the Regents' Convocation address 
of 1884, his dearest pleasure in applause was the thought 
that it would be grateful to her. 

" I exhibit this egotism of telling how the audience re- 
ceived my thoughts, only because I know it will be happify- 
ing to you." 

But hosts of private letters, with their temptations for 
a gleaner, must fold their revealinga away. The further 
quotations are from articles prepared for the public which 
asked for them and which he sought to instruct. The 
first two date from his college life. Even in those days 
he wrote with wonderful discernment. Evidently later 
in life he examined with some surprise these boyish 
thoughts, for on a margin opposite a particularly excel- 
182 



From His Desk 

lent opinion, neatly expressed, are these words in his 
mature "handwriting : "I wonder if this was original." 
It is interesting to note that those first reflections and 
conclusions mark the foundation principles on which all 
his activity was based : 

1858 : " The world needs benefactors, self-sacrificing men 
who will devote their lives to promoting the happiness, not 
of one body and one soul, but of many bodies and many 
souls." 

" A thought can never perish nor a thinker be dead." 

" Every exposure of fraud is an evangel of hon- 
esty." 

1865 : " Nothing is of any value until it becomes sub- 
servient to law. The lightning flaming its banners in the 
sky may charm us or may frighten us ; its descending bolt 
may kill ; but its value becomes apparent only when a yoke is 
placed upon it and darting along its wire track it flashes 
thought as the sun flashes light. 

"The river flows toward the ocean almost uselessly — 
but bind it, gather up its headlong force and a power is 
developed that grinds our corn, spins our cotton, weaves our 
cloth and becomes the grand industrial agency of the arts. 
Steam flies off the surface of boiling water and is lost to 
view. But set bounds to it beyond which it may not pass, 
call out its latent energies, and a strength is secured which 
bears the heaviest burdens and sweeps through the longest 
journeys unwearied. 

" Take a child : its passions are wild and inflammable, its 
mind aimless, its will stubborn and refractory. Left to itself, 
it has no power to control itself or others. It will grow up 
disorderly, impatient, erratic — careless of the proprieties of 
church and state, the rights of others and the duties of on- 
coming manhood. Let restraint be placed upon him ; let 
him understand the law that is the basis of authority ; let 
him be taught control of body and mind, and there comes 
into his soul and life an immortal strength." 

183 



Joel Dorman Steele 

From a lecture to young people, 1868 : 

" No truth in science is clearer than that we reap just as we 
sow. Nature is an inexorable master. She keeps her debt 
and credit account without balancing till the last farthing is 
paid. In the light-hearted jollity of youth we sow late 
hours, hearty suppers, folly and dissipation. By and by 
with tears we garner pains, indigestion, and premature old 
age. 

" We are often startled by the crash that seems to wreck 
a fair reputation at a blow. Men cry out at the sudden 
downfall. The wise man goes to the root of the fallen tree 
and there detects the marks of decay following the hurt of 
an evil hour's thought or conduct. No great crime comes 
suddenly, except to the on-looker. O, how changed would 
be the life if we but reaped the harvest in the furrow ! " 

From a lecture to pupils on growth, 1869 : 

"Character is self-evolved. It is not something taken 
on — a varnish, a gilding — but an educating, a drawing out 
of the forces of the soul. We hear a great deal about self- 
made men, as if they were a distinct class. It is a mislead- 
ing term. All men are self-made if made at all. All men 
are self-educated, if educated at all. You cannot take on 
character. You must grow it. Other men's labor, no 
matter how well-intentioned, cannot impart it to you. Teach- 
ing even of the best kind, maxims of even the purest 
stamp, information, facts, experience, are of no good except 
they stimulate growth, force you to think. Your studies are 
only valuable as they develop your powers. The thing that 
will constitute your fitness for life is your habit of thought; 
your quickness of apprehension ; your thoroughness of exe- 
cution ; your power of adapting means to an end and of 
organizing success ; the ability of self-control you have 
developed — this forms the permanent part of your school- 
work. The rest will soon mainly go by the board and be 
forgotten in the rush of life." 



From His Desk 

From " Hints Pedagogical," a lecture for very young 
teachers : 

1874: " ' But,' says one, ' I have some hard cases in my 
school.' My friends, he is a poor carpenter who never 
worked up anything but ' clear lumber.' That farmer has 
something yet to learn who never held a plough among fast 
stones and hemlock stumps. Set your heart on making a 
man of that rough boy, a woman of that forbidding girl. 
There is a deal of sentimentalism afloat on this subject, 
especially in little story-books with red backs and much 
gilt. In these is shown how nicely a little and awful vaga- 
bond was reformed, made to wear good clothes like a Chris- 
tian and become a bright and shining light in easy stages. 
But Ignorance in reality is not so charming. Ignorance is 
filthy; talks bad grammar; swears; looks unamiable; plays 
mean tricks ; accepts favors and forgets to thank the donor ; 
is annoying and perplexing; takes good advice for the sake 
of new clothes — wears out the clothes and throws away the 
advice. But what of that ! There is your opportunity." 

From a " Parlor talk on German Schools," 1876 : 

" The continent seems to me no place for the education 
of our boys and girls. To the former especially the tempta- 
tions are incalculably greater than here. The customs of 
foreign society and of student life encourage that which must 
demoralize the pupil, and which in American circles would 
be a shame and disgrace. I can hardly see how a boy, left 
alone at Paris or Berlin can escape unsullied, except by a 
miracle. He would be a new Lot in Sodom — -a new Joseph 
in Egypt. 

" Yet, strangely enough, boys of sixteen or seventeen, 
with unfixed principles and unformed habits, are sent abroad 
to pursue their studies with no relatives to watch over them, 
no friends to care for them. Living in boarding-houses, 
unfamiliar with the language and customs of the country ; 
shut out necessarily from the really best society, removed 
from the privileges of church and home, deprived of the 

185 



Joel Dorman Steele 

restraints of public opinion, exposed to all the perils of a 
strange land, — they are thrust out at an age when we should 
surround them with every safeguard. 

" Besides all this, there remains the fact that a boy 
educated in Germany will inevitably imbibe notions alien 
to our American and republican ideas. His manners, his 
types of thought, his style of speaking and judging, will 
be affected. One sentence will embody any enlargement 
of this argument: An American should be educated in 
America. 

" Let us gather around our own institutions. If we turn 
our eyes abroad, let it be only to bring home the experience 
of the centuries to enrich our native land. Let us enlarge 
the facilities of our universities, giving them professors, 
libraries, museums, and apparatus; pouring into their treas- 
uries the wealth we may acquire; realizing that they must be 
our centres of intellectual life ; the Gymnasia of our culture 
and refinement ; the hope alike of art, literature, science and 
religion." 

From "The Scholar in Politics," a lecture of 1876 : 

" Out from the stir and struggle of a laborious life ; out 
from the sharp clashings of scientific dispute ; out from the 
janglings of theologic strife, where truth is the prize and God 
is the umpire ; out from the political arena where disgrace 
and shame mingle with the glory and achievement of 
this anniversary year — I come in no mood for rounded 
periods on scholarly subjects ; with no laurels to cast on the 
well-ornamented graves of Bacon, Newton, Kant, or Spinoza. 
I shall attempt no rhetorical antics or classical legerdemain. 
The questions of to-day stir my soul. 

" Not what Rome was but what New York is concerns us 
most vitally. My pulse quickens not at the message of 
some courier, clanking along the Appian way with news of 
Caesar or Antony, but with the click of the telegraph and 
the elections of yesterday. Nineteenth century issues press 
in on every hand and demand investigation. A thousand 
186 



From His Desk 

subjects challenge criticism in science, religion, art, litera- 
ture and politics. We cannot ignore them if we would. 
There are forces fast digging the channels along which are 
to pour the tides of national life for the coming ages. The 
workmen are busy all about us. We hear the ring of the 
spade and the rattle of the earth. Should not the scholar 
answer questions, guide forces, and assert himself in the 
positions his education qualifies him to fill.? 

" Every man here is a King. On each, therefore, rests 
the responsibility of the crown and the throne. In the early 
days of our history this was felt to be a privilege. The 
most highly educated men, University graduates, ministers 
— of whom at one time there was a superabundance in the 
little colony clustered around Massachusetts Bay — all took 
part in the government. 

" Two centuries have changed all this. We no longer 
govern ourselves but the politicians and place-seekers govern 
us. We are told, forsooth, that the pool of politics is dirty, 
and that he who would keep his garments clean must not 
venture to go down, even though he be sure that it is an 
Angel that is troubling the waters. A minister is allowed, 
by sufferance, quietly to cast a ballot, but he is not to indi- 
cate by word or gesture that he is an American freeman, 
capable of an enlightened judgment upon the men and 
measures that are to rule the country. It has come to pass 
if a man of any standing in a community, takes an active 
part in a canvass, people begin to inquire at once, ' What 
does he want .'* ' It does not seem to occur to any one that 
a man with anything else to do would be willing to attend 
primaries or work at the polls from a sense of duty — a wish 
to see the right man (though he be not a personal friend) 
elected to office. 

"... It is the duty and privilege of the educated man to 
establish an aristocracy of brains rather than one of the 
dollar — to assert the supremacy of mind and to seek for 
intelligence, Christianity and culture the positions that right- 
fully belong to them." 

187 



Joel Dorman Steele 

The following are the closing words of a sermon de- 
livered before one of his graduating classes : 

" Work, then, honestly, persistently, patiently, watchfully, 
devotedly ; building not for yourself and the present time, 
but for God and the blessed eternities. The years we were 
to pass together are drawing to a close. The famihar hours 
of song, of prayer, of earnest thought, of social joys, are 
already growing fainter in the distance, like the footfalls of 
a departing friend. Sweet and tender are these memories 
as I stand before you to-night. Remember, I pray you, 
their lessons of wisdom ; garner their wealth of sunshine for 
the darkness of some hour yet perchance to come. Stand- 
ing here on the brink of the present, I ponder the future. 
The future ! O, that I could prophesy to you of that / 
But I need not. Brother, sister, put thy hand in God's 
hand. He will lead thee where the counsels of the elders 
would fail, and the strong man would falter and fall. The 
tempest-tossed ocean of life must be crossed ; but I hear 
the loving words, 'Peace, be still.' And far away, amid 
the gathering mists and darkness of the on-coming years, 
I see the signal lamps swinging and flashing and beckoning 
to our Father's house." 



In July, 1884, Dr. Steele, at the Centennial Anni- 
versary of the University of the State of New York, 
delivered before the University Convocation his last 
public address. On account of its length and educa- 
tional importance it is embodied in a chapter by itself, 
— the one succeeding this. 

What was the magic of his pen, what his continuing 
dominion over men? It was his recognition of truth, 
and that something by which he made others see it. 
Some called his winning charm one thing, some another. 
But each life stirred by the thrills of his own, through 
188 



From His Desk 

whatever channel, felt the mysterious and blessed tie of 
fraternity. 

He asked no other man's privilege, no other man's 
mission. He drank from the nearest pure spring, and 
bore to his neighbor's thirst a cup of its refreshment. 
He worked in his own place, not chafing at its limita- 
tions but making it limitless. With a high sense of 
its dignity he wrought the humblest task that waited his 
hand — with humility he did the thing the world called 
great. 

Was he called untimely from the need of the world ? 
But he had said of himself long before : " We cannot go 
until our work is done I ^^ 



189 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE-TEACHING i 

IN THE ACADEMIES OF THIS STATE, AND SOME REFLEC- 
TIONS THEREON. 

BY JOEL DORMAN STEELE 

IN the limited time allowed me for the preparation 
of this article I have been able to make only what, 
in days now happily past, we learned to call a recon- 
naissance. What little I have discovered I submit, 
hoping that it may be of service to some one who shall 
hereafter occupy the field in force. 

" A century ago " in science seems to us an age. 
The phlogistic theory was then scarcely overthrown, 
and Lavoisier was still busy in laying the foundations 
of chemistry. Count Rumford, or, as we should know 
him by his plain American name, Benjamin Thompson, 
had not yet proved that " heat is a mode of motion." 
Humboldt was still to take mankind by the hand, as 
Virgil took Dante, and lead the way through the Cos- 
mos. The asteroids wandered unknown in space. 
Galvani's frogs were sporting in their native ponds. 
The very latest chemical news was that one Cavendish 
had proved water to be composed of two gases — hy- 
drogen and oxygen. 

Fascinated by the vast strides of recent science we 
are sometimes disposed to underrate the triumphs of 

^ Read before the University Convocation at Albany, N. Y., 1S84. 
190 



History of Science-Teaching 

the elders. The nineteenth century philosophers stand 
in the foreground and fill the whole angle of vision. 
Physics without Young, Arago, Ampere, Faraday, Kirch- 
hoff, or Henry ; chemistry without Dalton, Gay-Lussac, 
Davy, Liebig, Bunsen, or Draper ; physical geography 
and geology without Humboldt, Buckland, Lyell, Agassiz, 
Hitchcock, Dana, Guyot, Hall, Winchell, or Dawson ; bi- 
ology without Lamarck, Cuvier, or Darwin ; and astronomy 
without John Herschel, Leverrier, Lockyer, Young, Lang- 
ley, or Newcomb — all look so barren that we are half in- 
clined to wonder why our fathers ever studied science. 

With such thoughts in mind, I have found it a very 
pleasant task to examine some of the scientific school 
books used in the academies during the present century. 

The oldest text-book I have been able to find is 
Blair's "Easy Grammar of Natural Philosophy " printed 
in England (1804) and republished in this country. It 
is a tiny, well written, and neatly illustrated work. 
There are chapters on matter and its properties, motion, 
mechanics, pneumatics, acoustics, optics, electricity and 
magnetism, and a brief section on astronomy. 

But far more popular, in the early part of the century, 
was Mrs. Marcet's " Conversations on Natural Philoso- 
phy." This author also wrote similar works on chemistry 
and political economy. Of the latter, Macaulay says : 
" Any girl who has read Mrs. Marcet's book could 
teach Montague or Walpole many lessons on finance." 
Martineau's biographical sketches speak of Mrs. Marcet 
in glowing terms. In England, there were numerous 
editions of her " Conversations," and they were reprinted 
in this country. Mr. Blake, a Boston teacher, edited 
the edition of 1824, adding questions at the bottom of 
the page after the good old fashion. In the language 

191 



Joel Dorman Steele 

of the Yankee publisher, " Mrs. Marcet's treatise on 
natural philosophy has probably contributed more to 
excite, in the minds of the young, a fondness for study- 
ing the science, than all other works together." Let 
me quote from the table of contents. There are chap- 
ters on the general properties of bodies ; the attraction 
of gravity ; the laws of motion — simple and compound ; 
the mechanical powers ; hydrostatics ; springs, foun- 
tains, etc. ; pneumatics ; wind and sound ; optics, etc. 
Notice that the divisions are very like those now used, 
but that electricity is omitted. The topics follow one 
another naturally, the style is pleasant, while many of 
the examples are familiar to us. Strangely enough in 
the centre of the work, is interpolated a treatise on as- 
tronomy, containing four chapters on the earth, the 
planets, the moon, and the tides. In the edition before 
me printed at Boston in 1831, I am surprised at the 
classic beauty of the illustrations ; they are not pictures, 
but drawings of practical value. 

The next step in the progress of scientific instruction 
is chronicled in the preface of Comstock's *' System of 
Natural Philosophy," published at Hartford in 1832. 
The following extract is very suggestive : 

" Mrs. Marcet's ' Conversations on Natural Philosophy,' 
a foreign work now extensively used in our schools, though 
beautifully written, and often highly interesting, is consid- 
ered by most instructors as exceedingly deficient — particu- 
larly in wanting such a method in its explanations as to 
convey to the mind of the pupil precise and definite ideas. 

" It is also doubted by many instructors, whether ' Conver- 
sations ' is the best form for a book of instruction, and par- 
ticularly on the several subjects embraced in a system of 
natural philosophy. Indeed those who have had most ex- 
perience as teachers, are decidedly of the opinion tliat it is 
192 



History of Science-Teaching 

not; and hence we learn that in those parts of Europe 
where the subject of education has received the most atten- 
tion, and consequently where the best methods of conveying 
instruction are supposed to have been adopted, school books 
in the form of conversations are at present entirely out of 
use." 

A leaf of recommendations follows the preface. I give 
a specimen in full. It shows that even the phrases of 
our fathers survive in our speech and writing. This 
letter is from John Griscom, LL.D., then principal of 
the New York High School, and one of the best science 
teachers of his day : 

New York, June 19, 1830. 

Esteemed Friend, — I have received and examined thy 
book on natural philosophy, with much satisfaction. I have 
no hesitation in saying, that I consider it better adapted to 
the purposes of school instruction than any of the manuals 
hitherto in use with which I am acquainted. The amiable 
author of the " Conversations " threw a charm over the differ- 
ent subjects which she has treated of by the interlocutory 
style which she adopted, and thus rendered the private study 
of those sciences more attractive ; but this style of manner, 
being necessarily diffuse, is not so well adapted to the di- 
dactic forms of instruction pursued in schools. Hence, 
also, more matter can be introduced within the same com- 
pass, and I find, on comparing thy volume with either of the 
editions of the " Conversations " now in use, that the former 
is much better entitled to the appellation of a system of 
natural philosophy than the latter. The addition also of 
electricity, and magnetism is by no means unimportant in 
a course of instruction in the physical sciences. 

I am, with great respect, 
John Griscom. 

P. S. — I have recommended thy book to all the pupils 
of our high school who attend to natural philosophy, and 
it is the only book which we shall now use as a class-book, 
13 193 



Joel Dorman Steele 

This very excellent philosophy is doubtless familiar 
to many present. Indeed, the copy I have was put in 
my hands as a text-book just forty years since. How 
familiar, and yet how strange the work appears ! Fa- 
miliar cuts, illustrations of principles, definitions and 
statements occur on every page ; and yet it seems 
strange to look over a natural philosophy with no refer- 
ence to heat, galvanism, thermo-electricity, spectrum 
analysis, or conservation of energy; that assigns only 
four pages to magnetism, and thirteen to electricity; 
and that speaks of light as " composed of exceedingly 
minute particles of matter," of the sun as *' the largest 
body in the universe," and gravely remarks that "per- 
haps from a high mountain a cannon-ball might be 
thrown five or six miles." Here again, as in Mrs. Mar- 
cet's book, astronomy is sandwiched in as a separate 
chapter, but occupying seventy-five of the two hundred 
and ninety- five pages of the entire book. Wind, also, 
appears as a topic under acoustics. The connection in 
this case is so slight, it is interesting to find the classi- 
fication adopted by different authors. 

Arnott's " Elements of Natural Philosophy " was pub- 
lished in England, in 1827; was translated into nearly 
all the European languages and was extensively used in 
this country. Professor Youmans says that " a genera- 
tion ago it was the leading text-book." It contained a 
wealth of illustration expressed in exceedingly happy 
language. Here the term "natural philosophy" was 
made to cover a treatise on astronomy, and another on 
physiology. The title of one chapter carries the thought 
back to other days. It is this : " The Imponderables — 
Caloric, Light, Electricity and Magnetism." 

In both these works we find the great principles of 
194 



History of Science-Teaching 

physics so carefully defined and illustrated that one 
cannot but be impressed with the idea that, after all, 
the old preponderates over the new. Because the new 
is fresh, and we are all eager to keep abreast with the 
times, the recently-discovered truth often takes the 
precedence of long-established principles, that, on ac- 
count of their age, have lost their novelty, but are still, 
as before, the basis of the subject. It would surprise 
one to see how much the pupil thoroughly grounded 
in these old books would know, and how little he would 
have to unlearn. 

In chemistry, as in physics, there were conversations, 
and then the didactic text-book. The older teachers 
will remember the best, perhaps, of the latter kind — 
"Comstock's Elements of Chemistry" (1831). This 
was, in part, based on the larger work of Dr. Turner, 
published in London, 1827. In his preface, Comstock 
remarks : " Of all the sciences, chemistry is the most 
complete in respect to its language, the order of its 
arrangement, the succession of its subjects, and hence 
in the facility with which it may be learned." How 
easy it all seemed fifty years ago ! The phlogistic 
theory had been swept away ; an admirable and syste- 
matic nomenclature had been adopted; the atomic 
theory, with the law of definite proportions and equiva- 
lents, had given a basis of philosophy and invested the 
composition of bodies with a new interest ; while the 
brilliant experiments of Davy had attracted universal 
attention. Happy day ! The intricacies of the new 
nomenclature were yet far in the future. The concep- 
tions of unitary structures, of quantivalence, of organic 
radicals, of substitution, were unknown. Imagine the 
look that would have come over the face of a student 

195 



Joel Dorman Steele 

of Comstock, who should have been asked to give the 
chemical constitution of, for example, ethyl — amyl — 
phenyl — ammonium iodide. 

Following Comstock came the profound work by 
Silliman, and the popularization of the subject by You- 
mans. To how many of us Professor Youman's charm- 
ing lectures were like the opening of a great gate letting 
us into a new realm of thought of which we had never 
dreamed ! 

Geology is a science almost of yesterday. When 
Silliman began to lecture at Yale (1804), " most of the 
rocks were without a name, and classification of the 
strata was quite unknown." In 1820, Professor Eaton 
and Dr. Lewis Beck, made a geological survey of 
Albany county, and ten years later, Professor Eaton 
published his geological text-book, with a colored map 
of New York geology. The survey of New York State, 
commenced in 1836, by Vanuxem, Emmons, Mather, 
Torrey, Lewis Beck, DeKay, and him whom we are 
proud to have in our midst today — James Hall, opened 
a new era in the study, and by classifying the paleozoic 
rocks made our geologic fields classic ground for all 
time. " Hitchcock's Elementary Geology," published 
in 1840, passed through thirty editions in twenty years, 
and did much to popularize the subject. It specially 
served, in part, to allay the violent prejudice that had 
arisen in many minds because of the supposed anti- 
biblical tendency of geologic teachings. The instructor 
of to-day knows little of the bitter opposition the 
teacher of twenty-five years ago often experienced from 
his patrons if he ventured to insinuate that the earth 
was not created in six days of twenty-four hours each. 
What Huxley so aptly termed, in his Chickering Hall 
196 



History of Science-Teaching 

lecture, the " Miltonian Hypothesis " was then only too 
currently msisted upon, as many of us found to our 
cost. 

'' Cleaveland's Treatise of Mineralogy" appeared in 
1816, and fostered the growing taste for this study. 
The " Edinburgh Review," in those days when it was 
praise indeed to speak well of an American book, said 
that Cleaveland's was the " most useful work on miner- 
alogy in the language," and advised its republication in 
Great Britain. "Dana's Mineralogy " came out in 1837, 
and soon became, what it is to-day, the standard 
authority. 

Astronomy is the oldest of the sciences, yet in the 
early part of the century it seems to have been con- 
sidered in school work, as we have seen, a sort of ad- 
dendum to physics. The oldest American academic 
text-book I have been able to find is the " New Ameri- 
can Grammar of the Elements of Astronomy," on an 
improved plan, by James Ryan ; it was published in 
New York, and copyrighted in 1825. Herschel's Out- 
lines, afterward so popular, appeared in 1849. "Olm- 
sted's Letters on Astronomy," printed in 1840, were 
addressed, as the author tells us in his preface to the 
revised edition, to a female friend (then no more) 
whose exalted and pure image was continually present 
in the composition of the work. The eminence of 
Professor Olmsted and the richness of his diction gave 
these Letters a wide circulation. The appearance of 
"Burritt's Geography of the Heavens," especially when 
revised by Mattison, formed an epoch in astronomical 
teaching in our schools. Many of us recall the feeling 
we experienced when we first opened those beautiful 
charts and realized that then we could teach the subject 

197 



Joel Dorman Steele 

as never before. It is not strange that at one time this 
work was adopted in our academies almost exclusively. 

Did time and space permit I should like to name 
many other academic text-books used by our fathers 
and by us in our first attempts at teaching, such as 
Lincoln's "Botany," Comstock's " Physiology," Bonny- 
castle's " Introduction to Astronomy," Mrs. Phelps' 
" Philosophy," Robinson's " Philosophy," Euler's " Let- 
ters to a German Princess," Comstock's " Geology," 
Parker's " Philosophy," Potter's " Science and Arts of 
Industry," Smith's " Philosophy," and many others. But 
ere I leave this subject, I must make a suggestive quota- 
tion from " An Address to the public, particularly to the 
members of the Legislature of New York," by Emma 
Willard, published in 1819. This remarkable educator 
here sketched her idea of a female seminary. Among 
the studies to be pursued she recommends that of 
"natural philosophy, which," she says, '■^ has not often 
been taught to our sex. Yet why should we be kept in 
ignorance of the great machinery of nature, and left to 
the vulgar notion that nothing is curious but what devi- 
ates from her common course In some of the 

sciences proper for our sex, the books written for the 
other would need alteration ; because, in some they 
presuppose more knozvkdge than female pupils ivotdd 
possess ; in others, they have parts not particularly in- 
teresting to our sex, and omit subjects immediately 
pertaining to their pursuits." From this we might sup- 
pose that a publisher's prospectus of the time would 
have run somewhat after this style : " A natural philoso- 
phy reduced to the comprehension of the female mind," 
and "A chemistry expurgated and revised so as to in- 
clude only those subjects that pertain to the pursuits of 



History of Science-Teaching 

women." What would good Miss Willard have thought 
if she could have seen the thorough course of laboratory 
work pursued by the young men and women of Cornell, 
or the comprehensive schedule of study at Syracuse, 
Vassar, and Elmira? 

Let us now pass on to notice the apparatus formerly 
used in our schools. 

A century since, experimental science was just de- 
veloping. It should be chronicled as a matter of history 
that, at this early period, during the dark days of 
poverty that followed the Revolution, the Regents of 
the University encouraged its growth in a practical 
manner. Within a month after the organization of the 
Board, in 1784, it authorized its foreign agent "to pur- 
chase such a philosophical apparatus for Columbia 
College as Dr. Franklin, Mr. Adams, and Mr. Jefferson, 
ministers of the United States, advise." This measure 
seems, however, to have failed, for the minutes contain 
several allusions to the need of apparatus, until, in 1786, 
it was voted to pay ;^200 to Dr. Bard, then professor 
of natural philosophy in the Medical School, for the 
apparatus he had secured under the direction of the 
Board. In 1790 the sum of ;^750 was appropriated to 
the purchase of books and apparatus ; one-half to Col- 
umbia College, and one-half to the four academies then 
under the care of the Regents (viz. : Clinton, North 
Salem, Goshen, and Flatbush), the apparatus, etc., to 
belong to the Board and to remain in these institutions 
at its pleasure. In 1793 there was a similar appropria- 
tion, and in 1794 another of ^1,500; the latter sum, 
however, to be divided between the purchase of books and 
apparatus, and the support of " youths of genius, whose 
parents were too poor to pay for their education." 

199 



Joel Dorman Steele 

Frequently, too, when special appropriations were 
made by the Legislature to particular academies, there 
was a clause inserted requiring the authorities of the 
institution to secure an apparatus. Thus, for example, in 
1826, an act for the relief of Jamestown Academy pro- 
vided that before receiving " the said sum of $1,600, the 
trustees shall give security for the faithful application of 
said sum to the erection of a suitable building for said 
academy, and to the purchase of library and chemical 
apparatus^ The act of 1834 prescribed that the excess 
of the literature fund over $12,000 should be assigned 
by the Regents to the schools under their visitation for 
" the purchase of text-books, maps, globes, philosophi- 
cal or chemical apparatus " to the amount of not over 
$250 per year; but, with a nice discrimination, specifies 
that such school must first have applied an equal sum 
to the same object. The act of 1838 directed that 
"no academy shall participate in the annual distribution 
of the literature fund until the Regents shall be satisfied 
that such academy is provided with a suitable library 
and apparatus." The act of 1857 fixed the amount to 
be applied by the Regents to the purchase of apparatus, 
etc., at $3,000. 

This seems like a small sum, it is true, for a great 
State to apply to such an object, but its influence has 
been most marked. From our own knowledge, we can 
testify of academies that, through the fear of losing their 
•share of the literature fund, have provided themselves 
with a " suitable library and apparatus ; " and of teach- 
ers who, struggling to procure proper facilities for work, 
have found the assurance of the secretary that their 
contributions would be doubled by the Regents, just 
the lever needed to encourage their patrons to do 
200 



History of Science-Teaching 

what otherwise they would never have attempted. All 
honor and thanks to the men who devised and carried 
out this beneficent scheme. Many a school owes its 
library and apparatus entirely to the stimulus of this 
appropriation. 

As to the general character of the apparatus used in 
the early times, I have been able to secure little in- 
formation. In 1835, the Regents voted an appropria- 
tion to buy apparatus for Fairfield, Canandaigua, St. 
Lawrence, Kinderhook, Middlebury, and Montgomery 
academies. Nearly all the lists are alike ; I append the 
one furnished Fairfield, as a specimen : 

Orrery $20 00 

Globes 12 00 

Numerical frame and geometrical solids . 2 50 

Movable planisphere i 50 

Tide dial 3 00 

Optical apparatus 10 00 

Mechanical powers 1 2 00 

Hydrostatic apparatus 10 00 

Pneumatic apparatus 35 00 

Chemical apparatus 25 00 

One hundred specimens of mineralogy . 10 00 

Electrical machine 12 00 

Instruments to teach surveying ... 80 00 

Map of United States 8 00 

Map of New York 8 00 

Atlas 5 00 

Telescope 40 00 

Quadrant 15 00 

Total $309 00 

Notice that the Regents were thus instrumental in dis- 
tributing among the schools small mineralogical cabinets, 
a year before the geological survey of the State began. 
201 



Joel Dorman Steele 

Those whose memory dates back three or four decades 
will recall the standard apparatus of that time — the table 
air-pump, the cylinder electrical machine, Barker's Mill, 
the frame with the mechanical powers, a trough battery, 
Hare's compound blow-pipe, etc. 

It is not very long since physical laboratories for stu- 
dents' use were unknown ; instruments of precision were 
unthought of; chemistry was relegated chiefly to the 
physician or the druggist ; while the apparatus used in 
school was largely for the illustration of the principles of 
natural philosophy. Astronomy boasted of an orrery, 
an instrument invented by Dr. Rittenhouse, of Philadel- 
phia, about 1768. Occasionally an academy possessed 
a movable telescope. But within the memory of some 
present there was not an observatory on this continent. 
So late as 1825, President Adams, in his first message, 
declared that " it is with no feeling of pride as an Amer- 
ican that the remark may be made that on the compara- 
tively small territorial surface of Europe there are existing 
upward of one hundred and thirty of these lighthouses 
of the skies ; while throughout the whole American 
hemisphere there is not one." The president's rhetoric 
was not equal to his aspirations for scientific advance- 
ment. Not only did his plan for an observatory in con- 
nection with a national university come to naught, but, 
worst of all, his conceit of calling an obser\^atory "a 
lighthouse of the skies," excited such universal ridicule 
that the subject became obnoxious for years. To arouse 
a roar of laughter at the president's expense, it was 
necessary only to allude to his so-called plan of " finding 
a lighthouse in the skies." 

Repeatedly afterward, Adams and others advocated 
the scheme of a national observatory, but it was long de- 
202 



History of Science-Teaching 

layed, and the building was not opened until 1844. 
Meanwhile, the first telescope, above a portable size, 
was set up at Yale College in 1830; the first observa- 
tory was established at Williams College in 1836; and 
the United States Observatory at West Point in 1839 
was the fourth in order. Others followed apace, so that 
the Dudley Observatory, incorporated in 1853, was the 
twenty-second; and Hamilton College Observatory — 
since so famous under the directorship of its noted 
planet-finder Dr. Peters — was the twenty-third. 

As to the date of introducing and the number of 
schools teaching science, my inquiries lead me to believe 
that more academies formerly pursued this branch of 
study, at least through physics, than is generally sup- 
posed. The appropriations by the Regents for the pur- 
chase of apparatus, the early reports of these schools to 
the Regents, and the personal statements made by teach- 
ers who distinctly remember classes of fifty years ago — 
all tend to the same conclusion. 

Chemistry and physics were taught first in Union 
College (1797), and next in Columbia College (1802), 
though in the medical school of the latter institution 
they were pursued long before. 

The academy record, so far as I have been able to 
collect it, is as follows : 

No. of pupils in 
Name. natural philosophy. Date. 

Clinton Academy 12 1788 

Kingston Academy 6 1804 

Union Hall Academy .... 23 1804 

Oyster Bay Academy 3 1804 

Catskill Academy 6 1804 

Cayuga Academy i 1805 

Fairfield Academy 10 1806 

203 



Joel Dorman Steele 



Name. 






No. of pupils in 
natural philosophy. 


Date. 


Hamilton Oneida Academy 
Erasmus Hall 




3 
9 


i8o6 

1807 


Lansingburgh Academy 
Hudson Academy . . 
North Salem Academy 
Ballston Academy . . 
Dutchess Academy . . 
Onondaga Academy . 
Hartwick Seminary . 








5 


1807 
1813 
1813 
1813 
1813 
1813 
1815 


Clinton Grammar School 








1830 


Gouverneur Wesleyan Seminary . 
Delaware (Delhi) Academy 




1830 
1830 



(Some of the above academies are extinct, or merged 
into later institutions, but the full record is given as a 
matter of history.) 

From the Regents' report of fifty years ago (1834), 
which includes sixty-seven academies, I have compiled 
the following table : 

No. of schools in which 
Name of study. said study was taught. 

Natural philosophy 62 

Chemistry 44 

Geology 

Natural history 9 

Botany 18 

Mineralogy i 

Anatomy i 

Physiology 



The latest Regents' report (1884) includes two hun- 
dred and fifty- seven academies and academical depart- 
ments. I have compiled from it the following table : 
204 



History of Science-Teaching 

No. of schools in which 

said study was taught 

in the following years : 

Name of study. 1873. 1883. 

Physics 131 208 

Chemistry 69 146 

Astronomy 58 138 

Zoology 4 SI 

Geology 46 106 

Physiology 102 208 

Botany 126 143 



The greatest change that appears in the later table is 
the introduction of geology and physiology, which were 
not taught fifty years ago. Instruction was given in 
geology first at Jefferson Academy in 1 834-1 835, Com- 
stock's text-book being used ; during the following year 
the study was pursued at Jefferson, Washington, and 
Bridgewater Academies. It is a source of great gratifi- 
cation to notice that, during the past decade (1873- 
1883), the member of science-classes taught in the acad- 
emies of the State has very nearly doubled. 

It is easy to imagine the method of science-teaching 
employed in the early days. In education, as in geol- 
ogy, there are retrospective types. As the garpike ex- 
plains the ancient Devonian fishes, and the nautilus 
reveals the structure of the ammonite, so enough old- 
fashioned pedagogues have survived to furnish a key to 
the paleozoic age of education. 

How vividly the ancient method comes to mind as we 
recall our own school days ! Occasional lectures were 
given on pneumatics, hydrostatics, etc. The apparatus 
was brought out of the case ; the dust of the preceding 
year was brushed off; a withered apple was made plump, 
and a frightened-half-to-death mouse was scientifically 
205 



Joel Dorman Steele 

exterminated under the receiver of the old table air- 
pump ; a boy was put on the insulated stool and his 
hair caused to stand up like " quills upon the fretful 
porcupine ; " next, the class, taking each other's hands, 
formed a ring and received the shock of a Leyden jar. 
So, the hour passed all too quickly, with much fun and 
little science, and then the apparatus was carefully put 
away for the next yearly exhibition. 

For class-work, the book was placed in the hands of 
the pupil ; a lesson was assigned, which he was expected 
to " learn by heart " and then recite verbatim. Practi- 
cally, however, the book being kindly provided with 
questions at the bottom of the page, we inclosed with 
brackets such portions of the lesson as we thought would 
be required for the answers. Happy was the boy who 
had an old book marked by a brother or sister who had 
gone over the ground before. He could commit exactly 
what was needed, and was saved all trouble of reading 
over the rest of the text. Neither pupil nor teacher 
ever thought of making any appeal to the object de- 
scribed. No one could identify in real life the thing he 
had read about in his book. As Agassiz so well re- 
marked, " The pupil studies Nature in the schoolroom, 
and when he goes outdoors he cannot find her," In 
fact, he never looked for her. 

Since that time there has been an entire revolution in 
method. I do not think that this change occurred at 
any fixed date. Professor Silliman, in his address at the 
grave of Priestley, commemorating the centennial of the 
discovery of oxygen in 1774, said: "The year 1845 
marks the beginning of a new era in the scientific life of 
America." I cannot accept the doctrine of educational 
catas trophism. It is more probable that there has been, 
206 



History of Science-Teaching 

through many years, a gradual evolution of better ways 
of teaching. 

Numerous causes have conspired to bring about this 
result. By the close of the first half-century from the 
formation of our government under its new constitution, 
enormous changes had taken place ; the number of 
States had doubled ; the population had reached seven- 
teen millions ; the great west was growing with marvel- 
lous rapidity ; the railroad system was fairly inaugurated 
and our immense treasures of coal and iron were being 
developed. Then came the conquest of Mexico, and 
the discovery of gold in California, laying open the un- 
told resources of a vast region to the skill and enter- 
prise of an already highly-stimulated people. Science 
was, even before this, making rapid strides. Grand 
generalizations thrilled the pulse of the world. Applica- 
tions of principles to common life brought the subject 
within the comprehension of practical men. Every one 
who had a daguerreotype taken by the process initiated by 
our own Dr. Draper, felt a dawning respect for the 
wonders of science. The triumphs of steam and elec- 
tricity were patent to all. Men saw the " labor of a year 
shrinking into the compass of a day ; the travel of a day 
into the compass of an hour ; and the thought of man 
outstripping the velocity of light." They demanded to 
know something of the new forces that were shaking the 
nations. The call arose on all sides for a wider curricu- 
lum and more practical methods of study in the schools. 
Out of such an environment grew up the new education. 
Technological schools were established, the first of which 
was our own Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, founded 
so far back as 1824. The colleges gradually yielded to 
the unwelcome necessity. Laboratories were erected. 
207 



Joel Dorman Steele 



The modern methods of science-teaching were intro- 
duced. Students came back into the academies equipped 
with the recent views of education. 

The change that has been wrought during the last 
twenty-five or thirty years is marvellous. The colleges 
can now demand for entrance a better knowledge of 
science than they themselves gave in their regular course 
a quarter of a century ago ; many a country academy 
and city high school can boast a finer apparatus than 
the college then afforded ; and in not a few secondary 
schools, competent teachers (they are worthy of the 
name of professor), in their laboratories and in the 
open field, are bringing their pupils face to face with 
nature. 

I cannot join in the fashion, at present very common 
among a certain class of specialists, of pointing the 
finger of contempt at the average academic science- 
teacher. Cram is not the goddess of the academy 
alone. She sometimes lives and reigns in institutions of 
loftier name. The " birds whisper in the air " of in- 
different professors who lock up their cabinets, or go 
through listless laboratory work that is only the ghost of 
the new education ; and of pupils who repeat, parrot- 
like, the names of fossils and compounds they never 
saw, describe abstruse theories they never applied, and 
read off from their closely-written cuffs and collars the 
formulae they are too lazy to commit and too ignorant 
to grasp. Such exceptions prove nothing against one 
class of institutions more than another. The average 
school is as good as the people want, and far better than 
they are willing to pay for. The over-burdened teacher, 
occupied with his regular recitations every hour in the 
day ; required to teach, besides the whole sweep of 
208 



History of Science-Teaching 

the sciences, perhaps half a dozen branches of study, 
ranging from arithmetic to the IHad ; with no time to 
prepare experiments or to clean up after them, except 
in precious hours snatched at the cost of health from 
his meals, rest, and exercise ; having no money, save 
what he takes from his own scantily- filled purse, to pay 
for chemicals, and the expense of working and repairing 
the apparatus provided, as well as for making the simple 
instruments he would like ; unable to purchase books 
and too weary to read them were they his; knowing 
that science is constantly advancing, yet shut in, by a 
necessity he cannot overcome, from every source of 
information, — is it any wonder if, too often, in sheer 
despair, he takes refuge in the old-fashioned method, 
and teaches chemistry as he does Greek — from the 
book? 

Permit me, in closing, to offer a few reflections : 
I. The error is sometimes made of trying to turn an 
academy into a college. The science-teacher mistakes 
his own growth for that of his pupils. Because he 
understands a subject more fully and easily, and can 
talk about it better than formerly, by that transference 
of quality, so natural to us, he conceives that his pupils 
are more advanced, and can digest stronger food than 
those of a few years before. He accordingly attempts 
to teach the most abstruse theories to mere boys and 
girls. While claiming a place for science among the 
more elementary studies, because it employs and culti- 
vates the powers of observation, he yet seeks to elabor- 
ate formulae as difficult as any grammatical analysis. 
Years will be required for those child- minds to expand 
sufficiently to grasp such comprehensive views, or to 
gather in enough material for their application. Now, 
14 209 



Joel Dorman Steele 

a theory is only a thread on which to string the isolated 
beads of fact, but if one have no beads, of what use is 
the thread? Time and again, patrons and pupils com- 
plain of this tendency, and remark of their teacher, " he 
is growing too learned for us ; he ought to be in a 
college." The effect of such teaching is to destroy the 
interest naturally felt in scientific pursuits; to render 
them dull and unattractive ; and to send the pupil out 
into life with no incentive to, or love for, further study. 

2. The progressive, studious teacher delights in the 
newest discoveries of science. They fill his mind, and 
stir his blood. Fired with their wonders, he is liable to 
dwell upon them to the exclusion of that which is old, 
and hence " flat, stale, and unprofitable " to hhn, but 
which is new, interesting, and absolutely necessary for 
his pupil. Secondary classes need principally the ele- 
mentary facts and laws, and very little indeed of scien- 
tific gossip. They should be well grounded in truths, 
most of which our fathers knew almost as well as we do. 

3. To be intelligent nowadays demands a general 
acquaintance with many branches. Even to read a met- 
ropolitan newspaper, understandingly, requires some in- 
formation concerning science, history, art, literature, 
geography — a not mean range of scholarship. With a 
certain class of people this kind of universal knowledge 
is stigmatized as superficial. How often do we hear the 
maxim quoted, "A little knowledge is a dangerous 
thing." "A very dangerous adage it is," says Huxley. 
" If knowledge is real and genuine, I do not believe it is 
other than a very valuable possession, however infinites- 
imal its quantity. Indeed, if a little knowledge is dan- 
gerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out 
of danger?" 



History of Science-Teaching 

It needs a life-time to become profoundly learned in 
any branch. But because one does not wish to calculate 
an eclipse, may he not learn enough of astronomy to 
understand the law of gravitation, to trace the constella- 
tions, to see the planets with a telescopic eye, to appre- 
ciate the splendid triumphs of celestial physics, and to 
make the heavens a source of joy for his life-time? Be- 
cause one does not care to name every timber and brace 
and rafter of the " house he lives in," may he not learn 
enough of physiology and hygiene to understand the laws 
of his own being, and to conserve the highest working 
energy of his mind and body? Because one does not 
desire to make an analysis of an ore, may he not learn 
enough of chemistry to understand its common applica- 
tions to his everyday life, and to the arts and sciences? 

Such knowledge may seem very superficial to the as- 
tronomer, the physician, and the chemist, yet it makes 
one intelligent in society and business, opens up new 
avenues for study and thought, and is useful in manifold 
ways. To obtain the exact knowledge of anatomy re- 
quired to be a surgeon, would be almost useless for one 
who does not intend to follow that profession, while the 
details, not being daily recalled to mind, would soon es- 
cape his memory. It would be far better for him to 
spend his time in gaining a general acquaintance with 
those branches that would give him the broad culture 
which forms so valuable a possession for a well-read man 
of the world. Moreover, " the little knowledge " that is 
dangerous, is that of the man with a hobby, who knows 
only one thing, who did not lay a broad foundation be- 
fore he began to build up the specialty of his life's work. 
The narrowness of his view, the nearness of his horizon, 
the lack of all notion of the interrelation and interdepend- 

211 



Joel Dorman Steele 

ence of ideas, make his knowledge a source of peril to 
himself and others. 

This general acquaintance with science should be 
"real and genuine," so far as it goes. Thoroughness is 
a quality applicable to a little, as well as to much, knowl- 
edge. One term's work may be just as far from super- 
ficiality, be just as true to the scientific spirit, and be 
just as perfect of its kind, as a year's labor. Accuracy, 
definiteness of conception, and readiness in the applica- 
tion of principles, will be best attained, not by an elabo- 
ration of the profundities of a subject, nor by a familiarity 
with its rare details, but by the mastery of its general 
laws, its characteristic ideas, its most commonly-observed 
facts ; in a word, by getting into its spirit and becoming 
able to reason after its manner. 

4. Are we not liable to overestimate the value of a 
written examination as a test of attainment in science 
and a basis of advancement in grade? The demand in 
elementary science is not a smattering of every principle, 
but a positive grip of the leading truths and their related 
facts. The test of progress is one's mastery of the 
scientific method. The new education requires the 
pupil to see accurately, to judge for himself and to apply 
principles intelligently. We teach him how to use appa- 
ratus, how to seek out his own illustrations, and how to 
improvise simple instruments for proving or explaining 
his statements. We expect him to weigh, to measure, 
to scan, to analyze, to combine. We make much of 
exactness and neatness of manipulation. We show how 
investigations are made, and, when the pupil is suffi- 
ciently advanced to warrant it, we encourage him to ven- 
ture upon little excursions of his own. Now, nearly all 
this work with nature, instead of about x\3XViXt, and hence 



History of Science-Teaching 

the most valuable part of the science-teaching, lies out- 
side the reach of a written examination. A few prob- 
lems and queries may be propounded, but the haste and 
excitement of an examination by no means favor that 
calm, judicial clearness of thought with which one should 
always study a query that nature presents for his solution. 

Both teacher and pupil realize, when preparing for 
such an examination, that the result will be likely to 
hinge upon the remembrance of details. " They accord- 
ingly work," says Huxley, " to pass, not to know ; but 
outraged science takes its revenge. They do pass, but 
they don't know." Now, in all this the delicate aroma 
of fine teaching entirely exhales. 

5. The path of the beginner is not the path of the in- 
vestigator. At first, the pupil must take things upon au- 
thority. It is a mere waste of time to set him at work to 
discover and prove for himself. He is ignorant of scien- 
tific laws and processes ; he cannot rely upon his own 
reasoning and he ought not to ; he knows neither the 
limits of, nor the errors incident to, experimentation; 
he cannot interpret results ; he does not understand how 
to manipulate apparatus ; and his crude work may dis- 
prove the very thing he ought to prove. The idea of 
turning a tyro into a laboratory, and thinking that, be- 
cause he is learning how to bend a glass tube, or to make 
oxygen gas, he is therefore on the high road to discover 
every secret of nature, is as absurd as it is injurious. A 
wonderful power of manipulation may be acquired with- 
out gaining a single philosophical idea. 

A certain amount of thorough elementary study, ac- 
companied by lecture-table illustrations from the teacher, 
and a gradual introduction into the use of apparatus, the 
methods of experimentation, the properties of matter, 

213 



Joel Dorman Steele 

and the broad scope and application of natural law, 
should in general, precede any laboratory work, either 
physical or chemical. 

6. Oral instruction, or, better, oral assistance, is in- 
valuable as a help in science-teaching. It supplements 
the deficiencies of every book ; it gives freshness and 
vivacity to the recitation. But when a Httle excitement 
in class is substituted for the steady drill and toil of the 
individual mind ; when the teacher does all the winnow- 
ing and screening of the subject for the pupil, and feeds 
him only the " bolted flour ; " when the youthful, imma- 
ture pedagogue proposes to make, off-hand, a better 
book than the trained author with the experience of a 
life-time ; and when dry skeletons of thought and scraps 
of facts are presented on the black-board, to take the 
place of the rounded periods, the clear analysis, and the 
vivid illustrations of a modern text-book, — then, I say, 
give me back the paleozoic teacher and the educational 
methods of a former age ! Knowledge not born of the 
travail of the soul is useless. The report of the com- 
mittee on science-teaching, given before the American 
Association for the Advancement of Science at the 
session of 1880, well reads: "Where it is all talk and 
no work, and text-books are filtered through the imper- 
fect medium of the ordinary teacher's mind, and the 
pupil has nothing to do but to be instructed, every sound 
principle of education is violated, and science is only 
made ridiculous." 

7. "Science," says Professor Cooke, "is noble, be- 
cause it considers the noblest truth." The grand con- 
ceptions with which the physicist deals have, aside from 
their scientific interest, an immense educational value. 
It is a far nobler work to form character than to impart 

214 



History of Science-Teaching 

knowledge ; hence the thoughtful teacher watches every 
opportunity to exercise this rarest function of his office. 
To the discerning eye, the physical in nature constantly 
presses up against the spiritual. How full of meaning is 
the law of gravitation, the mutual sympathy of sounds 
and motions, the change of food into flesh, the conser- 
vation of energy, the adaptation of the eye to light, and 
the whole range of related facts ! 

When the pupil first discovers that the flavor of an 
apple reveals the nature of the tiny bud that was put into 
the stem twenty years before ; when he beholds a lily — 
fair as the white robes of a saint — growing from the 
black mud of the swamp ; when he sees a solid crystal 
building itself up out of a transparent liquid, in exact 
accordance with the principles of molecular architecture ; 
when he finds that he cannot succeed in an experiment 
so long as he varies a hair's breadth from the line of an 
invisible law ; when he realizes that the force which pulls 
his arrow to the ground, rounds the orbit of the planet 
— how naturally, at such pregnant moments, may the 
thought of pupil and teacher detect the infinite presence, 
and the mystery of matter culminate in the mystery of 
God! 



215 



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